


Kakkhan: The AU Chronicles

by TheShadowPanther



Series: The Kakkhan Series [4]
Category: Dragon Ball Z
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Attempted Rape, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Genderfuck, Rape Recovery, Romance, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-22
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowPanther/pseuds/TheShadowPanther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AUs of The Kakkhan Trilogy. Yes, AUs of an AU all in one collection. Newest installation: Uploads of romping plot horses and two breakup scenes between Gikuko and Kakkhan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ia. The Beginning of a (Beautiful) Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Stories will be uploaded according to their number, not according to their chronological order. So if you see an update but not the chapter at the end, look for the proper number in the Chapter Index.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: “That boy . . . at the hospital with you. Be sure to thank him properly for looking after you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/Spoilers: Description of assault, NEAR-RAPE, child abuse, swearing, teenaged Kakkhan and Gikuko. Triggery material.

**PART ONE**

“No!”

The sharp cry rang in the alleyway in which it was uttered. It came from a girl of tallish stature, slender, with bright, distinctive midnight-purple hair. She was in the midst of grappling with a dark-haired, swarthy boy, who, though shorter than she, was yet overpowering her. The boy succeeded in shoving the girl up against the alley wall, pinning her wrists to the dirty plaster behind her and leaning in close so that their faces nearly touched.

“There, pretty Gikuko-chan,” he crooned, the smile he tossed her white and malicious. “Bet you wish you never stepped out of your house today, hm?”

Gikuko didn’t answer, just turned her face away. The boy, snarling, seized her chin and dragged her face back around to his own, disfigured by his rage. “I said, ‘Bet you wish you never stepped out of your house today, _hm_?’” he repeated, voice harsh. Again, Gikuko tried to look away, but with her chin grasped firmly, she could only move her eyes anywhere but at her assaulter.

“Bitch!” He dropped her chin and slapped her across the face instead. “Answer me!”

“Get off of me!” she said instead, resuming the fight anew. Momentarily thrown off, the boy faltered for only a second before throwing her back again.

“Impressive,” he growled, hand tightening on the wrists he still held. “You actually managed to surprise me there.” He remained scowling for a second more, but a smirk then managed to overcome it as some other idea evidently came to him.

“You know,” he said, tone conversational, “I was going to be nice about this and take you back to my place, where we could have our little . . . meeting,” — he leered — “in private, but since you’ve been such a bad girl, I think I’ve changed my mind.” His smirk grew wider as Gikuko’s horrified eyes lifted to meet his. “Oh, yes, you _have_ been a bad girl, and bad girls need to be punished.”

He stretched Gikuko’s arms over her head and pressed his body close in to hers. One leg ended up in between both of Gikuko’s, forcing a whimper from her. “Oh, _yes_. That’s exactly what I want to hear. Do more of that, and this won’t end badly for you, hm?”

His only answer was another whimper. The boy’s grin had stretched now, teeth gleaming white as he forced his body against hers, shivering as this time he got a gasp. “That’s it,” he chuckled. “Knew you’d enjoy this, if’n you were showed right.”

“No,” Gikuko moaned. “No, Saito-sempai, don’t — !”

Saito was pawing at her now, ripping the scarf off of her school uniform, tearing through her shirt to the skin underneath. “No!” she screamed, tugging at Saito’s grip on her. “No, get off, get away — HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

As Saito chuckled, hand slipped into her blouse, he was suddenly torn from his pursuit and thrown bodily into the other alley wall. The newcomer, who had wild, spiky hair, was taller than Saito but yet shorter than Gikuko, and looked murderous, only spared her a single glance, then turned and strode over to the other side of the alley.

Gikuko, freed, slid down her wall and scrambled to get her shirt done up again. She ended up having to be content with holding the two sides of the destroyed garment together herself, as several of the buttons had popped off in the face of Saito’s eagerness. She looked up towards the other side of the alley, where the newcomer had picked up a thrashing Saito, but flinched when Saito was bashed headfirst into the wall.

Nonetheless, she could not stop herself from watching as the newcomer’s trench coat fluttered around him while he reached down to grab Saito’s shirt once again. “All right, you bastard,” he said, speaking for the first time, “let’s see you get some enjoyment out of this_._” _Thwack_ went Gikuko’s rescuer’s fist; _thud_ was Saito collapsing to the ground. The newcomer punctuated Saito’s fall with short, forceful kicks.

“I’ll make sure you get what you deserve,” he growled in his deep voice again, kicking again. “If ever I see you again, you’d better hope for death.”

With that, he heaved Saito up again and threw him as far as he could. Saito landed with a _thud _and a little roll, was still. The newcomer and Gikuko stared at one another, Gikuko’s rescuer still breathing erratically, Gikuko wide-eyed and trembling. Then, shocking herself, Gikuko heard herself say, “You . . . you’re Tairyoku Kakkhan, the, the gangster, right?”

A flash of something crossed Tairyoku’s face. Instead of answering, he squatted down onto his haunches. Gikuko’s body instantly tensed.

“I think you should go to a hospital,” Tairyoku said. He held up his hands when Gikuko would have protested. “He might not have actually raped you, but you could still bring him up on charges if you wanted to.”

_Rape_. The word hung in the air between the two of them for long seconds. Then Gikuko said, in a tiny voice, “Rape? He w-wasn’t going — ”

“Oh, yes, he was. You know that damn well.”

Gikuko shivered and drew the pieces of her shirt tighter around her. Again, she was silent for a long moment, lost in her own thoughts. Then — “T-the hospital would help?” she asked, not quite looking at Tairyoku.

“Yeah. With collecting evidence if nothing else.”

Gikuko said nothing, then, slowly, nodded. Tairyoku’s shoulders sagged visibly. “Good,” he said. Nodding towards her, he asked, “Can you walk?”

Instead of dignifying that with an answer, Gikuko stood, successfully working around her torn shirt as she got to her feet. Tairyoku smiled, grimly.

“Good.” Slowly, he unbent from his squat, and pointed to one end of the alley. “This way to the hospital. It’ll be a ten minute walk if we go slow.”

She nodded, but didn’t move. Tairyoku quirked an eyebrow, but turned and marched in the direction he’d pointed, stopping along the way to deliver another kick to Saito’s lifeless body. Gikuko, who had followed a good three steps behind, flinched, but didn’t complain.

They took a left at the end of the alley onto the broad street running beyond it. Here, there were more people around; Gikuko hurried to keep pace with Tairyoku, who only glanced back at her once.

“Hang on to my coat if it makes it easier,” he said. She swallowed, but did as he said.

“Thank you, Tairyoku-sempai,” she said, quietly.

Tairyoku didn’t respond at first, but when they turned a right and the hospital was visible at the end of the road, he said, “No problem, Yamaguchi.”

With that lingering between them, they started forward.

**PART TWO **

In Gikuko’s opinion, the hospital visit was humiliating, not the least because the nurse kept asking her horribly invasive questions while also taking samples of her skin where . . . _he_ . . . yeah. Even her clothes had been taken away; the people had claimed that they contained “evidence,” but not to worry, she’d get them back. As if she _wanted_ them back; she’d feel a lot better if she didn’t ever have to think about _it_ again. She just didn’t want t be nearly naked in the terribly exposing hospital scrubs in a half-curtained hospital bed after the worst moment of her life.

Only the thought that the gangster, Tairyoku Kakkhan, was waiting outside somewhere was enough to keep her not only on the bed, but also from complaining. He’d been the one to tell her that the hospital would help her, after all, and she felt that if she complained, she’d be throwing his kindness back in his face.

She forgot all about kindnesses done to her when the curtains shoved open to reveal the worst person possible for the setting — Yamaguchi Ruriko, her father’s second wife and mother of Gikuko’s six-year-old half-brother, Noboru.

The same Yamaguchi Ruriko who was glaring daggers at her even as the nurse moved towards her.

Gikuko shrunk in on herself and moaned quietly. She was in so much trouble now.

:-:-:-:

Ominously, Ruriko said nothing for the rest of Gikuko’s examination, except where she was required to speak; even then, she used only the clipped tone that she seemed to reserve especially for Gikuko’s infractions. She consented to go out of the curtains to hear what the nurse had to say without Gikuko hearing them, but her gaze was just as flat and unfriendly when she came back in as when she had gone out. Gikuko felt about two inches tall by the time she could finally go—the only good thing about Ruriko’s presence was that she insisted Gikuko not stay overnight — and the drive home did nothing to dispel that.

Only when they had driven up to the front of the Yamaguchi house did Ruriko deign to speak to Gikuko directly: “Go straight to your room once you are inside and change out of that ridiculous outfit. Throw away those clothes and then come straight down for dinner. We won’t have your father thinking that anything out of the ordinary happened while he was away today.”

Gikuko nodded miserably. “That ridiculous outfit” was the hospital scrubs that the nurse had insisted she wear instead of her torn uniform, which was “those clothes” she was to throw away. She didn’t mind following that order in the slightest, oh no, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had settled into her stomach at the thought of going into that house where her father would come home and choke the life out of the house with his very presence.

The idea had her rooted to her seat long after she was supposed to get out so Ruriko could have the car parked. She knew she was only incurring more trouble upon herself for it, but she couldn’t seem to be able to move, much less think about doing so.

“Move it, you ridiculous girl!”

A push on Gikuko’s shoulders had her sprawling sideways against the door, which opened unexpectedly under her weight. She tumbled to the driveway, hissing as she scraped her hands on knees on the asphalt, and lay crumpled where she landed. The asphalt was cold, Gikuko found, and vicious shaking was setting in, wracking her body so much it was an effort simply to keep her teeth from clattering.

“Hoshiro, get this car parked,” Ruriko’s sharp tones soon sounded above her. “When you’re done, go directly back into the house. Speak of this to no one.” A pause, then a mumbled reply that Gikuko may or may not have heard through the shivering, and a crunch of gravel that was presumably Hoshiro the butler crossing around the car.

“Get up, girl. The car can’t be parked if you’re in its way.” Ruriko’s heels, a contrast of brown body and white toe and heel, moved away. Gikuko struggled to lift her head and see where her stepmother was going, but the trembling was now so extreme she felt she was on the verge of shaking apart. The cold of the asphalt did not help, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus.

Hardly had she gotten her feet underneath her when Ruriko gestured at the car; the expensive Nissan model immediately raced off, barely scraping by Gikuko where she still stood near it. Ruriko just turned and clacked her way into the house, leaving Gikuko to straggle, still trembling, into the house alone.

Instead of going directly upstairs, however, Gikuko took a short detour into the kitchen, where the sharp-eyed Cook immediately pressed on her a cup of the hot tea she’d just made and two pastries positively slathered with icing. Gikuko immediately felt better just biting into the first; by the time the second pastry was gone and half the tea gulped down, the shakes had disappeared.

Nonetheless, she dared not linger any more than she already had, for it was close to dinner time already and she had not yet changed out of the scrubs. Cook didn’t urge her to finish the tea, either, nor had she said anything while Gikuko wolfed down her quasi-meal, for which Gikuko was grateful. Cook had returned to the stove and the heavenly smells wafting from it when Gikuko looked up, her back to Gikuko, which meant that she could make her escape without awkward questions.

To get to her room, Gikuko would have to go through the living room and up into the hall before she’d reach the stairs and safety. She was halfway into the former when Ruriko’s sharp voice stopped her.

“Shut the doors, girl.”

Tensing, Gikuko bowed her head and obeyed. Only when she had both doors, the one leading to the main corridor and the one leading to the hall, closed, did she dare to turn and look at Ruriko, whose mouth was pursed with anger.

“Come here.”

That terrible voice, the one Ruriko only used to deliver unbearable truths, truths that haunted Gikuko night and day, truths which never went away no matter how much Gikuko told herself they were true. Without thinking, Gikuko’s feet carried her over to where Ruriko sat in an armchair, the lamp nearby highlighting the flat planes of her face. Ruriko was not a beautiful woman, face too plain, eyes too large, mouth too lumpy. But she held herself tall, arranged her hair artfully, and chose her clothes carefully, so that she was able to bear her lack of looks with dignity. In the light, she looked especially forbidding; Gikuko shrank back from her even as she approached.

“I am very unhappy with you,” Ruriko began. Though they were said in the terrible voice as she’d used when she had summoned Gikuko over, the words made Gikuko flinch. They were the same words that her father had used the last time he ever spoke to her, and Ruriko knew it. Worse, she took advantage of it as often as possible. “You have disgraced the Yamaguchi family today with your actions. I don’t want to know any more than what I have already been told about why you were in the hospital without your father’s or my consent, or how you brought it upon yourself in the first place.

“I will accept that you did not intend for it to happen — it is as plain as day on your face — but this kind of dishonor must never happen again. We have already suffered enough with your mother and your sister’s actions — you will not follow in their footsteps. Do you understand?”

Gikuko nodded, not trusting herself to speak, lest she make Ruriko angrier by whimpering pathetically or protesting the slurs against her mother and Big Sister. Ruriko, however, had other ideas.

“Answer me, girl.” Her long-fingered hand, meticulously maintained and with nails manicured in a brown polish that matched her high heels, seized Gikuko’s chin and jerked it up. Ruriko’s dark eyes blazed, drilling into Gikuko’s own with a force that left Gikuko recoiling. Slowly, edge of menace to her tone, she repeated, “Do you understand me?”

Gikuko nodded her head rapidly, eyes watering against the grip on her chin. “Y-yes, Stepmother,” she squeaked. “I understand,” more quietly, as Ruriko finally released her. Ruriko leaned back in her seat, breathing deeply; Gikuko took a surreptitious step back, but did not rub at her chin; Ruriko would probably scold her on “unladylike behavior” again if she did.

Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Ruriko studied Gikuko with dark eyes, giving away nothing of what flickered behind them. Gikuko rather thought that her stepmother was finding her lacking; Ruriko usually did, and never hesitated to let everyone within the Yamaguchi household (and even a few people outside of it) know it.

Maybe it was because Ruriko was so silent that Gikuko felt as dirty in that moment as she had when Tairyoku had pulled Saito off of her, and in the hospital before Ruriko’s arrival had put the feeling out of her mind. Ruriko did nothing to quell Gikuko’s discomfort either, not even to tell her off for shifting from foot to foot excessively, as Gikuko was doing. With a sharp breath, Gikuko forced herself to calm, to stand before her stepmother as a person on trial before her judge.

More seconds ticked by; when Ruriko spoke, her voice was as soft as the room around them. “Go to your room,” she said. “You will not be expected at dinner; I will tell your father that are you not feeling well, as the hospital visit earlier today will tell. I expect you to be ready for school in the morning; this means homework as well as a proper appearance and attitude. Tomoyo will be up later to get rid of the clothes.”

Ruriko turned her gaze away from her then, a clear dismissal. Gikuko knew her surprise was clear upon her face, so she hurried to obey. She had just gotten to the door which led to the hall when Ruriko spoke one last time.

“That boy . . . at the hospital with you. Be sure to thank him properly for looking after you.”

Gikuko blinked back sudden tears, nodded quickly, then slid the door open. She didn’t know why Ruriko had changed her mind like this, when she most assuredly couldn’t be said to care for her stepdaughter, but Gikuko was not about to question it. This reprieve would probably be the only time it ever happened, and she didn’t want to jeopardize it. She hurried up the stairs, rushed into her room where she promptly dropped her ripped clothes into the wastebasket, and began sobbing in earnest.

**PART III**

School the next morning was bizarrely normal. Gikuko felt flayed open, like anyone could look at her and see what had happened, but no one asked her anything or made any disparaging remarks. As homeroom, first through third periods, and half of lunch went by, Gikuko began to relax. Although the conversation her friends Ran and Masuyo were having about senior classman Umeki Ryota didn’t interest her much, Gikuko could at least follow it better than before.

Then Masuyo had to say, “Oh, did you hear? Tairyoku beat somebody up again yesterday. I heard that the person he beat up nearly died!”

Gikuko froze. Her breath came fast and unsteady, and she dropped the piece of candy she had just been about to eat. Neither Ran nor Masuyo seemed to notice, for Ran scoffed and said, “Probably deserved it, whoever he beat up. I bet you it was a rival gangster.”

“Ooh, yeah, and they were fighting over the same girl!” Masuyo’s relish was very evident in the avaricious grin she sported. But Gikuko couldn’t share her friend’s delight; her hands had a white-knuckled grip on each other on top of her desk, and she was focusing very hard on the grains of the wood. This got noticed, but before Ran could say anything other than, “Are you all right, Giku?” Gikuko had stood up from the table, nearly knocking it over.

“I-I have to go,” she mumbled, stumbling over her chair. Ran and Masuyo were both out of their chairs at this time, but Gikuko ran right by them. The door careened past, and then she saw nothing else until she was encased in a bathroom stall, sobbing harshly, clawing at herself to make no sound.

What felt like hours later, the face of her nightmares finally receded. Sore, headachy, and feeling as if her eyes had been peeled like an onion, Gikuko made her way out of the bathroom. There weren’t a lot of people around, as it was class time, and the few people who were there fortunately didn’t look at Gikuko twice as she scuttled past. She still kept her head down, though, because her skin felt raw; if anything touched it, touched her, she felt as if she would break into a million pieces.

Luckily, she got to where she wanted to go without mishap. The first sight of the sky had her breathing deeply, shoulders slumping as relief poured over her. Moving to the wire fence that encircled the roof’s perimeter, she tangled her fingers in it, thumped her head against it, and let herself just breathe.

That is, before she heard the whispers.

“Hey, isn’t that Yamaguchi?”

“The girl Boss has been looking for all morning? Could be.”

Gikuko tensed, all thoughts of relaxing gone as if they had never existed. She looked over her shoulder, planning on escaping the way she had come, but had to catch her breath sharply at the sight of the two people lounging behind her. Somehow, they, a girl and a boy both about a year older than she was, had gotten onto the roof of the stairwell, where they were both sprawled in poses of careless abandon. Neither wore the uniform of her school, but Gikuko had seen their trench coat style and armband insignia only yesterday: They were the same as Tairyoku’s. swallowing, she pressed herself against the fence as one of them, the boy, craned his head back and shouted, “Hey Boss! That girl you wanted, she’s here!”

A few seconds passed in which Gikuko thought about making a break for it. She hadn’t forgotten what Tairyoku had done to S . . . _him_, and while she was grateful he’d stopped _him_, she hadn’t wanted to see the violence that had come afterwards. The real clincher had been how calm Tairyoku had been afterwards, and how he’d only glanced back at her once on the way to the hospital . . .

The blank look on his face that he’d had then, he had now as he called, “Yamaguchi.” Gikuko jerked her head up, heart pounding, as the memories slid away to leave her in the present. Tairyoku was standing about half a meter away, regarding her with that expression, his hands in his pockets. Unlike the other two gangsters, Tairyoku was in uniform, but so sloppily arranged he might as well not have made the effort. His black hair was as spiky as ever, and all in all did not give the impression of being the kind of person Gikuko wanted to be indebted to.

_ “That boy . . . at the hospital with you. Be sure to thank him properly for looking after you.”_

And yet, Tairyoku had looked after her. He might not have been the person Gikuko would have picked to help her, but he had, when he hadn’t had to. He had seen what was about to happen and not ignored it, but had done something about it. For that, Gikuko could never repay him.

“Yamaguchi, are you all right?”

Gikuko looked up again to see that Tairyoku had taken a few steps toward her. She drew a shaky breath, then another, and nodded. In this moment, seeing Tairyoku there, as solid as nothing else had quite seemed since yesterday, it brought down on her the full magnitude of her new reality. She knew, dimly, that she was not all right, that she would not be for some time, but it didn’t seem so daunting now. The future as it sat before her was still uncertain, but Gikuko thought that, with a little help, she might be able to handle it.

Bolstered, she took a deep breath and unfastened herself from the wire fence. Meeting Tairyoku’s dark eyes only briefly, she bent her head into a bow and said the words she had been certain she’d never be strong to say.

“Thank you, Tairyoku-san, for rescuing me from S—_him_. I—probably would have been worse off if you hadn’t been there.”

Whatever response Gikuko had been expecting, it had not been “No kidding.” She looked up to see Tairyoku frowning at her, blank look marred by the downturn of his mouth. Then his gaze shifted over her shoulder as he said, “If anything like that ever happens to you again, or if that bastard tries to harass you, let me know. I’ll take care of it.”

Speechless, Gikuko could only nod. Tairyoku gave a little nod of his own, as if satisfied, then abruptly spun and walked away. In the time that she and Tairyoku had been talking, the other two gangsters had somehow climbed down from the stairwell roof and were now leaning against the door, looking bored.

“Time for our grand entrance into class?” Tairyoku asked of them, receiving only nods in return. It took Gikuko a second to register, but then she started and looked at her watch, winced—she’d missed not only the rest of lunch but also most of fourth period. She would barely have enough time to get her stuff from the cafeteria and back to her class for fifth period if she also stopped to wash her face.

Still, watching Tairyoku and his “friends” disappear one by one into the stairwell, Gikuko thought that she may not be able to repay Tairyoku, but she could try. She’d see what Cook was willing to part with as a gift, or what she could make in Art Club that would suit. Maybe Tairyoku-san would even like chocolate . . .

Ah, but first she had to get through this day. She’d be in even more trouble if she didn’t get going, so for the moment she had to put aside her plans and concentrate on school and school only.

Planning, and wondering if Tairyoku-san ever had anything on his face other than a blank look would have to come later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally intended to be the backstory of a larger work entitled I. Friendship Knows No Bounds, but that got abandoned and this written in its stead, and, in a sense, stranded. Thus I am presenting it now as a stand-alone AU. It can be understood that way.


	2. II. Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dogs' Tails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakkhan wasn’t fooled. “Find Mommy,” he told her, pointing in the direction of the stairs. “Get cleaned up, and then come back down so I can yell at you for wasting flour and blaming your brother wrongfully, again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kidfic.

Kakkhan took one step into the kitchen of the house in Gaits Lanaid and stopped cold.

Flour spilled everywhere, all over the black granite countertops, the cabinets, the kitchen island, the sink with the clean dishes, the pots and pans scattered everywhere—and all over the two children staring guiltily at him.

They stood in a tableau for two seconds, Kakkhan at the door, the little girl standing on a stool holding the flour bag over the pot she’d been pouring into, the boy holding the stool still and bearing the worst of the flour damage of the two of them by far. Hotohori was nearly covered in white all down his front, black hair two-toned, face an operatic mask, clothes beyond help.

Mizuki, with her mother’s midnight purple hair and her father’s eyes, on the other hand, suffered flour damage all over her hands and wrists and down the front of her dress, but that was all. She was the first to break the plateau, dropping the flour bag and pointing at Hotohori, shrieking, “He started it!” and darting from the stool to wriggle past Kakkhan out of the kitchen.

Hotohori immediately jerked his head up and opened his mouth as if to protest, but snapped it closed a minute later and bowed his head. Kakkhan, watching him, sighed inwardly; then he leaned around the door to yell into the dining room: “No running all over the furniture! Find your mother and ask her to clean you up_, nicely_.”

“Okay!” Mizuki popped up from behind the couch, gazing at him with that sparkle in her eye, the one that said she knew she’d gotten away with something she shouldn’t have. One glower from Kakkhan had the sparkle disappearing; in its place, a contrite expression stepped.

Kakkhan wasn’t fooled. “Find Mommy,” he told her, pointing in the direction of the stairs. “Get cleaned up, and then come back down so I can yell at you for wasting flour and blaming your brother wrongfully, _again_.”

Contrition turned sulky, Mizuki’s true face laid bare; arms crossed over her tiny chest, she stuck her lower lip out and flounced off. Kakkhan counted from five down under his breath; when he reached zero, he heard, “MOMMY!” and a thunder of footsteps up the stairs. Shaking his head, Kakkhan turned back to the kitchen and the second pint-sized light of his life: Hotohori, who still had his head down and shoulders hunched up against the angry words he always expected.

“Hotohori.” Kakkhan knelt before his son, but didn’t try to touch him quite yet. Even now, Hotohori had irregular reactions to touch, especially Kakkhan’s; since Kakkhan had been the one to find him that rainy day and bring him to the hospital, this always broke his heart. But Hotohori never knew this, and Kakkhan hoped he never would. “You know that Mizuki only blames you so much because you let her, right? You’ve got to speak up.”

Hotohori took a breath, but didn’t say anything. Kakkhan waited to make sure he wouldn’t, then reached up to pat the flour from the head and face bowed to him. “All right, Hori-kun,” he murmured, trying to be as calm and as soothing as he could, “we’ll let that go for now. In the meantime, let’s get this flour off of you, okay?”

His son nodded, then paused. “The kitchen . . .” he said, voice tiny. “Should we—clean it up?”

“After we’ve gotten _you_ clean.” The sight of Hotohori covered all over with flour might have been amusing, but since it was Hotohori, Kakkhan didn’t like it. His son might not have been born of his flesh and blood, but his happiness was just as important. Right now, with a flush on his features and his head turned aside, hands clenching every so often into fists, Hotohori was about as far from happy as he could get. Still, he had sounded worried about the kitchen.

“How about I make you a deal,” Kakkhan started. “You find Mom and take a bath; I’ll get this mess in the kitchen sorted, and then we’ll all get together and try to figure out what really happened. Does that sound good?”

Kakkhan’s stomach unknotted when Hotohori looked up and nodded. His son’s eyes had tears in them that Hotohori dashed at with his arm, but he was able to smile when Kakkhan did; just that made everything that much better. Kakkhan gave a final dusty pat at Hotohori’s hair, then climbed to his feet with an exaggerated groan.

“Okay.” He surveyed the kitchen in all its disastrous glory and huffed in reluctant admiration for the sheer destruction both of his children had managed to devise. “Take your socks off when you leave the kitchen,” he said to Hotohori, “and try not to drop them anywhere that will make Mom upset. Oh, do you want to wipe your face? We’re here already, it won’t make much difference.”

Hotohori took a moment to decide, then nodded affirmatively. “Yes, Dad,” he repeated when Kakkhan raised an eyebrow. “Um . . .”

“What is it?” Kakkhan wet a facecloth with water from the tap and crouched in front of Hotohori again. With a few quick movements, he had banished the offending flour from his son’s face, smiling when the real Hotohori came through and not a ghostly visage of him. Hotohori, however, looked a little shocked, young even, which had the smile sliding off of Kakkhan’s face. “Hori? Is everything all right?”

“Y-yes, sir,” Hotohori nodded frantically. He backed away a step, bobbed his head again, babbled, “I’ll just go, Mom, bath—” and fled. Kakkhan stared after him, feeling like he’d just been sucker-punched. What had set him off? Was it something Kakkhan had done? Shaking his head, he unbent from his crouch and wrung the floury facecloth in the sink.

Turning around again, he surveyed the hurricane of the kitchen and sighed. He’d have to worry about Hotohori later, or trust that Gikuko would be able to figure it out. Hotohori had taken to her like a duck to water, so maybe she’d smooth over whatever he’d done wrong. It just hurt sometimes, that Hotohori didn’t trust him as much as Gikuko; it reminded him too much of the early days with Gikuko and dancing around her because she had been uncomfortable with his strength.

He cut that train of thought off. It was no use thinking about that, as it would only serve to remind him of what a wreck he’d been, and too stubborn by half to admit it. Instead, he turned to cleaning the kitchen up, no easy feat. He was halfway through when Mizuki bounded down the stairs, followed shortly by Hotohori.

“Where’s Mom?” Kakkhan asked from the island. Mizuki was busy clambering onto a clean stool, so he looked to Hotohori.

“She’s coming,” his son said, not quite hiding behind his hair.

“She’s making the water go bye-bye!” Mizuki chimed in, grinning at him from the stool. But Kakkhan looked at Hotohori and the way his soon was peering out from behind his fringe.

“You okay?” he asked. His hand alighted on Hotohori’s hair, which was damp, but had no flour. Hotohori leaned into Kakkhan’s touch, then looked up with a brilliant smile. Kakkhan’s heart lifted, and he returned the smile. “Good. Feel like helping me finish cleaning?”

“I just got them clean, Kakkhan, and now you want to get them dirty again?”

Kakkhan grinned at Gikuko where she stood in the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips. “Of course not. I just figured the job would go faster with two more pairs of hands.”

Gikuko eyed him suspiciously. “Two more pairs of hands? You weren’t thinking of making Mizuki clean, too, were you?”

“Of course. Mizuki created this mess, after all, and then tried to blame it on Hori.”

“But Daddy—!”

“Mizuki.” Both Gikuko and Kakkhan said at the same time. Mizuki subsided at their matching looks with a sulky pout. They turned back to each other, but Hotohori tugged on Kakkhan’s pants.

“It was my fault, too,” Hotohori mumbled, hiding behind his fringe now that he had the attention of both of his parents. “Don’t—don’t blame Mizu for all of it.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Gikuko said, “that’s nice of you, but you really don’t have to do that.” She reached out to slide her fingers through Hotohori’s hair. “Now, off to the living room with you two while your father and I clean this up.”

“But Mom—”

“No buts.” Back went Gikuko’s hands on her hips; Hotohori shrunk a little on himself. Mizuki hopped off of her stool and headed out of the kitchen.

Hotohori turned to follow her, but Kakkhan said, “If Hotohori really wants to help, then we should let him.” He gave Gikuko a significant look.

Gikuko seemed to gear herself up, but then she caught Kakkhan’s look. “All right,” she deflated, “but only if Hori wants to. Hori?”

Hotohori was nodding frantically, making Gikuko laugh not unkindly. “Okay then, let me get a rag for you.”

“Hori.” Kakkhan placed his hand on Hotohori’s shoulder. “I’m very glad you admitted you were at fault too. I’m proud of you.”

Hotohori lit up. Kakkhan smiled, ruffled his son’s damp hair, and stood. “Mizuki, get in here and help us clean!” he yelled.

“No!” Mizuki’s voice drifted back. Kakkhan rolled his eyes where Hotohori couldn’t see, then stalked to the kitchen door.

“Mizuki” was all he said. But his tone did not expect disobedience; indeed, Mizuki scrambled up from the low-slung living room table and darted into the kitchen. Today was one of her better days then; sometimes, even that tone of voice didn’t work on her.

“Good girl,” Kakkhan said, voice warm with relief. Mizuki retained the pout on her face, but Kakkhan ignored that in favor of returning to the last place he’d been. On his way past Gikuko, he said, softly, so the kids wouldn’t hear, “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Gikuko returned, dryly. Kakkhan snorted his agreement. “All the same, I still don’t like Mizuki cleaning with us.”

“We’ve talked about this before,” Kakkhan told Gikuko. “We can’t let her get away with things like this.”

“I know.” Gikuko sighed. “I just worry that we’re making her do too much too early. Like my—Hori’s real family did.”

Kakkhan cradled Gikuko’s face in one hand. “I know, dear heart.” He didn’t have to mention Gikuko’s slip up. “But Mizuki knows what is too much for her, and is perfectly capable of telling us that.” Gikuko gave a huff of laughter. “Hori, on the other hand, can’t, not really. So we have to keep an eye out for that, okay?”

Gikuko nodded, looking calmer. Kakkhan dropped a kiss on her lips and turned away, but not fast enough. For Mizuki pushed between them and demanded that her rag be wetted.

“Please,” Gikuko reminded. Kakkhan moved away with a reluctant smile; Mizuki’s sullen face could be cute sometimes, even as her behavior galled him on his best days. Taking up the place he’d left before, he paused to look over everyone as they moved around in front of him: Mizuki and Gikuko at the sink, Hotohori on the opposite side of the island. Mizuki bounced as she said something to her mother; Gikuko acquired an indulgent smile as she handed off her daughter’s wet rag; Hotohori’s brow furrowed in concentration as he wiped flour off of one of the bottom cabinets.

Kakkhan could feel this moment engraving itself in his memory. Here was his family all together, engaged all together in an activity that could be called inconsequential, hardly anything in the grand scheme of the myriad universes. Warmth suffused him so much that he couldn’t resist ruffling Hotohori’s hair again, or smiling at the grin his son returned.

These were the moments Kakkhan truly treasured. Just being together with the three people most important to him, nothing more to worry about than a dirty kitchen—he couldn’t ask for more.

Just as long as they were together.

**FIN**


	3. IIa. For Whom The Wedding Bells Toll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The proposal that starts the whole starry-eyed business in the first place, and a point of view that may make for melancholy nostalgia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Dragonball/Z/GT, but I do own everything else. Ha!
> 
> _Warnings/Spoilers_: FLUFF. Implied het. Dialogue &amp; exposition. Past character death. Outsider POV.
> 
> What This Is: Two drabbles (well, one's a double drabble) that covers two moments of perfect understanding between one Tairyoku Kakkhan and one Watanabe Gikuko.

1\. Proposal—Drabble; 99.7 percent dialogue, ~96 words, PG-13

"Gikuko—"  
"Oh my Gods, no."  
"What?"  
"You didn't."  
"'Fraid so."  
A squeak, followed by a thump.  
"Mm, wait, Giku—"  
"No, get back here—"  
"But I haven't asked you yet!"  
"It's yes, duh, now hurry up and get these clothes off—"  
"Sheesh, demanding."  
"Shut up and put that ring on my finger already. I want that to be the only thing—oh."  
"Giku?"  
"It's...it's beautiful."  
"Only the best for my mate."  
"Mmm."  
"…You know, we're not wearing any clothes."  
"You're right. Whatever shall we do?"  
"I have a few ideas, if you're interested…"

:-:-:-:

2\. Wedding &amp; Reception—Double drabble; second person perspective; past and present tense usage, ~197 words, PG

The wedding was a beautiful affair. Gikuko was radiant in her white dress, and Kakkhan looked no less smart in his tuxedo. The moment they were declared married, the joy on their faces was nearly too much to handle.

Yet, seeing them dance together at their reception, you feel that this is much better, much more true to them and who they are together. Here, Gikuko's lush mouth curves into a smile as Kakkhan murmurs something to her, his eyes smiling only for her. Here, their comfort with each other is not a product of a ceremony, but something so wholly natural to them that it's nearly sacred, makes you want to look away. But you don't; you don't want to miss a single moment of one of the happiest moments of their lives, even if you feel you are intruding in the process.

All too soon, the dance is over, and Gikuko and Kakkhan are breaking apart. With a smile you can feel is part pain, part soul-stealing relief, you lift one hand towards Kakkhan, wish silently for his everlasting happiness, and then must go.

It's not every day your twin brother gets married, after all.


	4. Ia. The Beginning of a (Beautiful) Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gikuko's pregnant, and right now she's _not_ happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings/Spoilers:_ swearing, Gikuko's own crap mood, morning sickness, and a protruding uterus (plus, I know nothing about pregnancy and the different stages, so if morning sickness doesn't happen after the first trimester, please forgive me and ignore that discrepancy.), brief mention of Gikuko's abusive ex-boyfriend, brief mention of Gikuko's abortion with said ex-boyfriend. Fluff. Also, Gikuko herself.
> 
> What This Is: A series coda to Kakkhan: Saiyan Dimension Keeper showing our heroes embarking on the next chapter of their lives.

Gikuko groaned as she threw off the covers and slid out of bed. She couldn't _wait_ for this be _over_ with, when she could stop throwing up every morning and dealing with the headaches afterwards. It was a good thing the bathroom was only a door away, for she barely made it this time. No mopping the floors today, thank goodness. When she had emptied the contents of her stomach and flushed the toilet thoroughly, she then splashed her face with water from the sink.

She looked . . . tired, Gikuko thought, looking at the reflection in the mirror. Tired and a little green, still. Plus her hair was all over the place, her breasts were huge balls of flesh underneath the shirt she wore, and her stomach was inflated like the balloon she always felt like nowadays. Gikuko felt worse than she looked, and she looked like shit.

And it was all Kakkhan's fault, bastard.

After another look in the mirror, Gikuko finally left the bathroom, grumbling as she went. Why she had ever let Kakkhan dispense with the condom in the first place was beyond her. If she had known that _this, _this awful bloated sensation and ballooning body, was what that would get her, she would never have agreed to it, even if she wouldn't be carrying the little girl growing inside of her. On second thought . . . .

Gah. It was all Kakkhan's fault, all of it, especially his timing. The man usually had an impeccable since of timing—the Demon Gods knew it was one of the reasons she loved him—but this time it had utterly, utterly failed. She hated him. And to think they had both been happy to learn Gikuko was pregnant. In fact, Gikuko had been so relieved when Kakkhan, after freezing in a heart-stopping moment of shock, had hauled her off of her feet and swung her around in dizzying circles. It really had been an exciting and joyful day: Gikuko smiled just remembering it.

Clearly neither of them had been thinking straight.

The sight of Kakkhan sprawled in their bed did not help matters. He hadn't moved once in the time she was gone, and even now his arm lay outstretched, inviting her to slide back into place and forget all about why she'd had to leave the bed in the first place. Well, Gikuko may have been tired—and she might have given into the temptation months ago, before Kakkhan got her _pregnant_ (and she wasn't nearly as unhappy about that as she sounded, honest)—but she wasn't about to give her idiot husband what his body wanted, ever again. This included entry into parts of her that she really would rather not have her inflating into a two-hundred-pound bowling ball, thanks.

To think that she had nearly gone this route with Saito. Thank the Demon Gods she hadn't.

Still, she _was_ tired. She didn't want to curl back into Kakkhan's body but she wasn't giving up their bed. That bed was _wonderful_. It was marvelous and comfortable and long and roomy and all kinds of other words meaning just plain miraculous—and her idiot husband was taking up two-thirds of it, as per usual. Too bad for him. She was going to take her share, and if he protested, all she had to do was remind him whose fault it was she was in such a crappy mood in the first place.

Scratch that. He'd just smirk at her and lay his hands on her stomach in that smug, proprietary way she both loved and absolutely _hated_. So maybe no reminders. But definitely pushing, oh yes.

She sat on the bed and reached out to do just that when she looked over and actually _saw_ her idiot husband. Kakkhan was lying nestled in two of the three pillows—two of which were Gikuko's, thank you—breathing evenly and quietly. His head was turned away from her into the second pillow resting against his shoulder, and the hand that wasn't outstretched was lying on his stomach over his ribs. Kakkhan looked as tired as Gikuko's reflection had, and she knew for a fact that he was. He _had_ been worrying about her a lot, between working at the Basilica Officii and occasionally being Tenna's escort to functions when Anton couldn't be, as well as staying involved with his family on Earth (both the Saiyan part and the Blue Star Gang)—and he didn't often get to bed before midnight what with everything he did. Gikuko had been telling him to take naps when he got back from his Dimension Keeper shift, but Kakkhan always insisted, the stubborn idiot, that he couldn't sleep during the day. This meant that he got more and more worn out with each day that passed.

Luckily, today was a mandatory day off for Kakkhan, as decreed by the Lady Fate. Gikuko didn't always like that particular Deity (she was still mad about the things She'd inflicted upon her husband just to get him to fulfill his _destiny_—ha!), but this move had gained Her a bit of Gikuko's respect. Maybe now Kakkhan would actually let himself sleep, though knowing him he'd probably find something else to occupy him instead, something like hovering over Gikuko (which Gikuko also had a love-hate relationship with).

Crazy man.

Gikuko knew she was smiling fondly. Her husband always managed to do this, charm her out of her bad mood even with her full knowledge of his tricks and intent. _Always_. And now he had even done it while unconscious. Shaking her head, Gikuko leaned over, shifting her hand on Kakkhan's shoulder for balance, and kissed him lightly on the temple. Not the push she had originally intended, but a good impulse nonetheless. As expected, Kakkhan stirred, but Gikuko's heart gave a traitorous squeeze when he murmured, "Mm, Giku," in that sleep-muffled, absolutely adorable fuzzy rumble that he always denied he had. Gikuko just _had_ to stroke Kakkhan's hair at that, though she added a soft, "Go back to sleep," request that she hoped he'd listen to. She wasn't betting on it though.

Kakkhan inhaled deeply, then shifted so that he was on his side. He then proceeded to completely surprise Gikuko by wrapping his arms around her, over her protruding uterus, and tightening his grip. She yelped lightly as she was dragged deeper into Kakkhan's arms, her hands flying up in her surprise and indignation. Her husband ignored the yelp (if he'd heard it at all) and snuggled into her, running his stubble-rough cheek over her breast, breathing "Mmm" again. She huffed as Kakkhan got his way after all and curled around her, but as he settled in, grew lax and heavy around and on her, his face smoothed from tired into content. Gikuko's heart constricted for the second time at the change, and she could feel herself smiling helplessly even while her fingers unerringly found their way through her husband's silky black hair again. The smile widened when Kakkhan hummed, wordless now, and while she couldn't bend to kiss her husband with him clutching at her like this, she could say, "Sleep tight," and squeeze him slightly with the hand in his hair around his shoulders.

Kakkhan didn't answer, but Gikuko didn't need him to. His relaxed, contented face said everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Oh my god, _soooo_ self-indulgent. I haven't written fluff like this since _forever_. But I woke up this morning and had the _perfect_ scene in my head for my favorite heterosexual couple, and I nearly _had_ to write it down. Nearly. And my crap mood is almost gone because of it! *cheers* Lol. And no, I don't know what I was thinking. I absolutely will _not _admit that I have an entire folder of Kakkhan Trilogy AU's stored away in a deep, dark corner of my hard drive, because, y'know, it doesn't exist. Right?
> 
> Right.


	5. III. Tono

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shitaue Tono encounters a tall, dark, and menacing Druid in the forest one day outside of his village, only to discover that the Druid is not what he seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings/Spoilers_: Spoilers for the entire series up to **KK:SDK **Chapter Thirteen: "Synchronization." Appearance of swords, wooden and otherwise, mentions of necrotic rituals, written like the general opening of a fantasy heroic quest (for Tono, at any rate).
> 
> What This Is: Alternate POV of **Kakkhan:** **Saiyan Dimension Keeper** Chapter Thirteen: "Synchronization." Concerns the scene between Kakkhan-as-Druid and the boy he gave the pendant to.

Humming slightly, Shitaue Tono skipped down the dirt-covered path towards his grandfather's house. He was hoping that the elderly man could teach him kendo today; he'd been missing his lessons for the past week because either Grandfather's back hurt too much or Tono's mother wanted him to run errands. Today was the first day that he could get free, and he'd instantly gathered up his wooden sword and slipped out of the village to continue the prized lessons.

He'd never be able to fight like the Fay hero N'lysent Sulphure if he didn't practice.

Tono rounded a bend in the road and stopped completely in his tracks. He could feel his eyes widening in surprise and fright at the sight he was seeing; the wooden sword in his hand trembled. The long-coated Druid in front of him did not seem to notice him, but stared calmly at the heavens. Was he searching the stars for some magical incantation that would strike Tono down if he moved just a centimeter the wrong way?

Tono began to slowly creep away, hoping to escape before the Druid noticed him, but then he stopped. His grandfather would chastise him for being so cowardly, especially when there was a traveler to offer hospitality to. Tono's people was famous in the land of Men for its hospitality towards all peoples, whether they be Fay, Druid, Elf, or Man, and Tono was not about to tarnish the honor of his hamlet now.

Even still, Tono did not know what he would do until he opened his mouth and out came—

"Sir?"

The Druid turned from the heavens in a way that said he had finished his meditation upon it and not as if he had been interrupted. Fathomless black eyes swept Tono up and down, making him feel small and worthless like Tono sometimes did when he looked at the stars.

Then the Druid asked "Yes?" in a voice that was too deep to be so gentle, and too gentle to be so deep. A flash of light brought Tono's eyes to the sword hugging the Druid's waist, and the calm that had washed over the boy at the sound of the voice instantly vanished.

Tono swallowed, but held firm to his resolve. "A-are you lost?" he asked, hating how his voice cracked on the first syllable. He pushed forward regardless, even if it was only to ask, "May I direct you somewhere?"

Again the indifferent, miniaturizing stare. "As a matter of fact," the Druid's voice rolled out (Tono suddenly noticed how well the Druid spoke Universal—better than Tono did, even): "I am lost. Could you show me to the western end of this forest?"

Tono's eyes widened even further. The western end of the forest was a bad place, the retreat only of those who wished to practice witchcraft or escape from forces not of this world. It was said that Druids hid there from avenging Fay and gathered in rituals designed to raise the Fay's beloved dead against them while they fled to safer places. Tono had scoffed at these rumors before, with all the blasé of a child unafraid of the forest edging the hamlet, but now the words of his elders swirled frantically in his brain and refused to give him rest.

Despite that, his voice said, "Y-yes, sir," while his body turned unerringly up the hill of leaves to his left. "Right this way, sir."

They went up the hill and onto the trail topping it, turning right in the direction that Tono had come from and continuing. The trail then curved to the right and ended at the foot of the giant Woree'li cliff face, beyond which Tono had been told never to go, as they led to the west woods and the Druids in their Demon-calling rituals. Tono trembled again, but showed the Druid behind him the small niche that would get him past Woree'li. "After you come out of the cave," he told the Druid, unable to look up, "turn left. You'll be in the west woods."

"Thank you," the Druid said, surprising Tono into looking up at him at last. He was still more shocked when instead of a black Druidic face, the visage of a Man turned to him. In the hand that the Man held out laid the whitest crystal that Tono had ever seen. "As payment, please accept this."

Automatically, Tono held out his hand and watched mutely as the crystal fell into it.

He had to look up again when the Man continued, "I suggest you hold onto this for as long as you can. Nothing will happen to you if you lose it," he added, possibly thinking to reassure Tono, who felt anything but reassured, "but your actions will not necessarily have the same effect upon the rest of the world."

With those words to sit heavily on Tono's heart, the Man turned and disappeared into the niche.

Shitaue Tono, a boy of ten years, with plain-looking features and boring old brown hair and brown eyes, with nothing to distinguish him from other Men except his burning desire to fight with the Fay and become a hero, was left to feel incredibly small, incredibly foolish, and incredibly lucky to still be alive.


	6. IIIb. a scene of clubs and something new unfurling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the club, Gikuko asks Kakkhan to take her home. Set somewhere between Chps. 12 &amp; 13 of SDK, so beware spoilers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set vaguely between Chapters 12 &amp; 13 of KKIII (so beware spoilers).~728 words; missing scene; pre-het/flirting?; sweet. Unbetaed.

The club was loud, densely packed, and smoky. Everywhere were people dressed up in risqué clothes. On the dance floor they gyrated, bumped and ground. At tables looking around with cool eyes. Sipping at frothing odd-colored drinks with shocking names. Sprawled all over each other in various forms of giddiness. The stench of alcohol and drugs permeated the air, clung to people as they passed by.

Gikuko couldn’t stand it anymore.

Placing her hand on Kakkhan’s arm nearby, she yelled, “Can you take me home?”

Kakkhan, who had been having an animated (read: loud) conversation with another man, immediately turned toward her. “What?” he yelled back.

Once again, Gikuko was struck by the pure physicality that Kakkhan exhibited. The Dimension Keeper was pure lean muscle and power worn like a cloak. Yet his fingers on her elbow were just a brush of skin against skin, his turn towards her a protective wrap rather than intimidating.

Gikuko’s second “Take me home” was lost as soon as it was born. A blast of music drowned out any speech anyone could have made. Kakkhan gave a little shake of his head and bent her ear down level with Gikuko’s mouth.

“Can you take me home?” Gikuko said a third time, pressing forward a little. Her own breath puffed at her from Kakkhan’s ear; she felt half-balanced, half-dependent on Kakkhan for a single second. Then Kakkhan turned towards her again, somehow closer than before.

“You want to get out of here?”

This close, his dulcet tones sent a shiver fizzing along Gikuko’s skin; she was even more aware of how close he was. “Yes, please,” she said to Kakkhan’s query.

“All right,” he said, bringing his head up over the crowd. Apparently finding what he wanted, he bent close again. “You stay here. I’ll go tell Tenna and get your things. If anyone bothers you, just tell the bartender, she’ll get rid of them for you.”

Before she knew it, he was gone. The man Kakkhan had been talking to leered at her, but she just turned her gaze away. It seemed like Kakkhan was taking forever when he suddenly was at her left side again, beckoning her with the lightest of touches to her arm. With Kakkhan as guide, the crowd parted easily; in next to no time they were out of the club and in the cool, fresh air.

The silence was deafening after the squeeze inside.

“Thank you,” Gikuko said, taking her coat and purse from Kakkhan. Handsome, reliable, powerful Kakkhan, who had abandoned the dizzying whirl of the club without a moment’s thought for her.

Kakkhan who was smiling, after his own fashion. “No problem.” Sincerity rang true in his words. Gikuko found herself flushing and ducking her head when he didn’t remove his gaze.

His voice was warm with amusement and – affection? – when he said, “Come on. I told Tenna I’d walk you home.”

Gikuko looked up to see Kakkhan offer his arm. “By ‘walking,’ you mean City-zooming, right” she teased, reaching out. Kakkhan’s dark eyes lit briefly as the ends of his mouth twitched. Still, he said nothing other than,

“Sure, if you want to.”

Another thrill ran down Gikuko’s spine. “Actually,” she heard herself say, “I think I’d like to walk.” She peeked up at Kakkhan through her bangs.

Those eyes warmed up completely; his smile now became perceptible. He squeezed her hand gently with his arm, then released it in favor of wrapping the arm around her shoulders. Gikuko ducked her head again, but did not disengage. Indeed, she snuggled in happily. Kakkhan was warm and solid, his arm a comforting weight. They set off so arranged; with every step they took Gikuko could feel something new unfurling.

Maybe Tenna was right. Maybe there was something here. But she’d rather not force it. Whatever it was that she had going on with Kakkhan, it felt precious and fragile, liable to break at any moment. She’d prefer to see where this moment went; if it didn’t do anything, then that was fine. Kakkhan as a friend was better than no Kakkhan at all.

She had a good feeling about this, though. So she’d take it slow, test out what Kakkhan thought about this and that. For the moment, she was content to hug herself closer to him, and let him convey her to her door.


	7. IVa. Guide, Guide, Sentinel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, being a Guide sucked. / Sometimes, being a Guide sucked. A lot. / Sometimes, being a Sentinel really sucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sentinels are people with five enhanced senses; technically they should be able to dial up or down these senses at will (somehow), but there are times when sensory information becomes too much and the Sentinel loses the ability to function properly in their environment. These times are called “zone-outs.” The Guide’s job, then, is to draw the Sentinel out of these zone-outs and bring them back to reality.
> 
> Fandom* invented the concept of bonded Guides and Sentinels, where for every Sentinel there is one perfectly matched Guide (Night World’s soulmate principle, in effect). In the show, the Guide is an ordinary person who happens to be doing his dissertation on Sentinels. Fandom decrees Guides to be as supernatural as Sentinels.
> 
> I took further liberties with zone-outs and the perfect Sentinel-Guide bond concepts, but I’m sure that I will be allowed these creative crimes. ;) Please, enjoy!

Sometimes, being a Guide sucked.

For all that Guides were vaunted and adored for being the people who stopped the pain of Sentinel senses gone haywire, it meant nothing when you weren’t actually able to do it. What was the point of being a Guide when your presence wasn’t the one that snapped your twin brother from the throes of a zone-out? Why were they different in this way and practically no other if it didn’t actually work? What had the Dimension Gods been thinking?

Menrui sagged as at long last entered the Guide that Kakkhan responded to most at the moment. Even still, it took her fifteen minutes – fifteen! – of gradually slowing thrashing before Kakkhan came around. As the Kakkhan collapsed into an exhausted, sweaty heap, Menrui made a promise to himself.

He’d find Kakkhan’s Guide if it killed him.

:-:-:-:

Sometimes, being a Guide sucked. A lot.

She’d been called into the city clinic yet again for another zoned-out Sentinel. It never got any easier to approach them. The stretch of the face as they silently cried out in pain, the stiffened limbs, the light gone out from their eyes – no, it never got any easier. But hardest of all was that these people were complete strangers.

Every time, Gikuko had to brace herself against the hope that she’d finally find the one Sentinel she’d been born for. Every time disappointment bloomed sharp as no world-shaking spark took her into the Sentinel’s mind. Gikuko would comfort the Sentinel as best as she could, but the disappointment weighed on her spirit and made the zone-out last five minutes longer.

It was enough to make her regret all over again that day before her fifteenth birthday.

The Sentinel this time had just come around when another was brought in, catatonic. Gikuko refused to sag, but took a moment to think: Whoever you are, please come soon.

Then she reached out.

:-:-:-:

Sometimes, being a Sentinel really sucked. Like coming out of a zone-out level of suck. This was, what, the third zone-out of the day? Gods, his senses were really fucked up this time.

At least the Guide-of-the-month was still here, so Kakkhan hadn’t had to wait forever in that blackening abyss of pain in his head. Twenty minutes, but among some of the longest minutes of his life; far too much of his life had been counted out in minutes like these.

There were some days when Kakkhan honestly doubted he had a Guide. After all, Menrui, Kakkhan from another ‘verse, didn’t suit him. None of the other Guides he had met suited, though the compatible ones had felt almost right. He had met many, many Guides since he had come online five years ago. None. Nada. Zilch. Zed. Zero. Nothing.

Over and over again the pattern had repeated, so that he thought he must have fucked up his chi when he brought Menrui in from the past timeline. Why else would the Dimension Gods hate him so much? So much, they were sending him into another zone-out. The futon was too rough, Menrui’s voice in the next room was too loud, the stars outside his window too bright. No pain this time, only the looming of the abyss, opening its maw and revealing the terrifying light at the bottom.

The last thing that penetrated from the outside was that Guide’s voice entreating Menrui to take him to the city clinic, whatever that was. Then black swept in; he knew no more, cradled in the embrace of the frightening light’s love.

Why was it so much to ask to be with the Guide who had been born for him?

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had intended to write a longer and more thorough Sentinel fusion, but got stuck on that one. This one came along and demanded to be the substitute. I like to think I will write that longer fusion someday, but for now this one will do.


	8. Va. The Green Eyed Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakkhan gets Gikuko a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings/Spoilers_: teen Gikuko &amp; Kakkhan, aliveness &amp; return of Menrui. Is also AU of The Kakkhan Trilogy in that Kakkhan and Menrui are real twins, and have been living on Earth for all of their lives. LONG.
> 
> What This Is: A snippet from the universe of a larger story called "Endergonic Relationships" that will have Gikuko and Kakkhan dating as teens, but then splitting up due to a mistake on Gikuko's part. They won't see each other for an indefinite period longer than five (or ten) years, but one day they'll meet up again . . . This story is set during when they originally were dating, i.e. while they're still teenagers. It's very much an AU of the original AU.

The rescue shelter was a yowling, stinking pandemonium of animals and people and animal food packages, or at least that was how Tairyoku Kakkhan liked to remember it. In truth, while there was yowling, and there was a stink, and people, and animal food packages, the only pandemonium to be found was in the cages containing the animals, and even then there was a disappointingly little amount of it.

Kakkhan still barely managed to get out of there with his life intact. It just wasn't due to the animals.

Well, not directly.

He didn't even bother trying to restrain his smile as he watched Gikuko flit about, cooing at all the cats and talking excitedly with the attendant hovering nearby. So far, Gikuko hadn't requested to take any of the cats out, but Kakkhan thought it was only a matter of time. If she didn't, then _he _would. Or Gikuko's older sister would. Whichever one of them got tired of seeing Gikuko's imitation of a butterfly first. A pretty, fluttering, excited butterfly.

Sharing amused looks with Gikuko's sister, Watanabe Uno, Kakkhan shook his head and smiled.

:-:-:-:

THE LITTLE TABBY CAT in the alleyway clearly appreciated Gikuko's gift of bread, if the way it was curling its head against her hand and purring was any indication. Kakkhan had eyes more for the look on Gikuko's face, the tender and delighted blend that he had seen before, but never directed at him. It made him want to elicit it again, but not toward a mangy alley cat. He hated himself just for thinking that, but there it was.

Menrui would say jealousy was so unbecoming. Kakkhan didn't care.

He was pleased, however, when his query of "You like cats?" came out casual and a bit curious. After all, he hadn't known his girlfriend had an affinity for them. He hadn't even known she liked animals at all. Yet here she was, petting a cat with who knew how many fleas or lice or other problems, looking positively . . . _enchanted_, that was the word.

Gikuko glanced up, the tender expression vanishing under the surprise that arrived to replace it. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, starting to rise to her feet. "We were walking . . ."

"No, no, it's fine." Kakkhan, to stop her from completing her move, crouched on his haunches. He held out a hand for the tabby to investigate, which it did after a wary moment. "I just didn't know you liked cats."

Gikuko's face softened again. "Oh, yes," she said. "I love them. I used to have one, but after Noboru was born, Father refused to have her in the house. He said Mei Lin wouldn't be able to handle the new baby and it was better if we gave her away." She seemed sad.

Kakkhan looked at her silently for a moment. "That wasn't the reason, was it?" he asked, already suspecting the answer. Gikuko shook her head, confirming it. "Was it because of your stepmother?" he continued, knowing the answer to that too.

"She always hated that Mei Lin wouldn't come to her, that the only person Mei Lin spent any time with as me. I tried to tell her it was because I fed her, but she wouldn't listen. Stepmother just couldn't really do anything about it until Little Brother was born." Gikuko bowed her head so her hair hid her face.

Kakkhan gritted his teeth, as he always had to with Gikuko's family, against the anger that threatened to boil. If he gave into it like he wanted to, he'd only cause trouble for Gikuko, and she was always on thin ice as it was. Better to keep it in and rage instead at Menrui.

"Does your sister like cats?" he asked instead, an idea beginning to form. Gikuko looked startled, but a thoughtful look settled in its place.

"I don't know," she said. "I could ask her." The hope that dawned was enough to seal Kakkhan's determination. One way or another, even if he had to keep it himself, Yamaguchi Gikuko Was Getting a Cat.

Menrui better be prepared to agree.

"Come on," he said, wiping his hands on his pants and standing. The cat, which had been enjoying his scratching behind its ear, gave him a dirty look with bulbous green eyes. Kakkhan ignored it and held out a hand to Gikuko. "We'd better get the groceries back before your sister gets worried."

Gikuko gave one last scratch to the tabby, which meowed loudly, then took off, tail high as it disappeared into the alley. She watched it go, another sad look gracing her face, then hitched the shopping bag higher on her hip and reached up to take Kakkhan's hand. "Yes," she said. "We'd better."

They walked away then, hand-in-hand, never to see the tabby alley cat again.

:-:-:-:

"Little sis," Uno said, "you're going to have to choose one eventually, you know."

As Gikuko blinked over at them, Kakkhan congratulated himself on not breaking first. Gikuko's sister had the patience of a rock, for Kakkhan had been itching to say that for the past ten minutes.

Never let it be said Tairyoku Kakkhan did not have a will of iron.

Still, Gikuko did look cute when she blushed and started stammering, so Kakkhan considered the struggle worth it.

"I—I just got so involved!" Gikuko was saying with that adorable red flush on her cheeks. "I totally forgot why we were here." She pouted and crossed her arms when Uno laughed at her.

Kakkhan decided to intervene. "S'okay, Giku," he assured her, crossing the room to put his arm around her. "You have a couple favorites in mind?"

Gikuko leaned briefly into him before nodding. "That one," she pointed, "and the Siamese cats."

The attendant, a woman with a generous smile to offset her drawn features, nodded approvingly. "All good choices," she said, moving to the cage Gikuko had first pointed to. "Now we'll have you spend some time one-on-one with them, give you a chance to get to know each other a little better and let the cats decide if they like you."

Gikuko chose this time to have one of her shy moments (apparent by the nod she muffled in Kakkhan's shoulder), so Kakkhan took the initiative and agreed in his girlfriend's place.

"Let's go."

:-:-:-:

WATANABE UNO was a tall woman, even taller than Gikuko, who was taller than Kakkhan by half a head. Uno, despite her black hair and brown eyes, so strongly resembled Gikuko that there could be no mistaking their relation. Best of all, she truly cared for her younger sister.

As a result, Kakkhan felt confident that approaching her about Operation Getting Gikuko's Cat would meet with success.

:-:-:-:

The first cat, a brown and dark brown Tonkinese, absolutely loved Gikuko. It bat at the shoelace she'd brought along, wound around her feet, peeked from under her hair from its perch on her shoulder at Kakkhan and Uno, performed acrobatics, even talked to all of them in grunts, meows, and purrs. Kakkhan could not help but laugh at the faces it made when Gikuko groomed it; when it nearly melted while Gikuko brushed one particular spot, he knew that was it. This Tonkinese had met its match in heaven.

Judging by the absolutely thrilled look on Gikuko's face, Kakkhan thought he could say the finding was mutual.

"What's the cat's name?" he asked the attendant, who was looking on amusedly (and perhaps a little sadly). The woman gave her magnanimous smile and said:

"Sora." Her smile turned wry when Kakkhan looked her askance. "The previous owner's child named him that. She loved Sora from that video game."

"Kingdom Hearts?"

"That's the one."

Kakkhan just shook his head. Children. Sora himself chose then to trot over to Kakkhan, plop onto his shoes, and meow loudly: a clear demand for attention. Kakkhan had to close his eyes against the silly grin threatening to take over his face (and against the grin that Gikuko was trying to hide, as well). Nonetheless, he obeyed Sora's command and crouched to scuff the cat behind his ears, for which his reward was a deep, full-body purr.

The silly grin won the war, but Kakkhan didn't actually notice until he caught sight of Gikuko nearly suffocating herself with trying not to laugh. The moment their gazes interlocked, Gikuko lost all control.

Even Sora looked around to see what was wrong with his new human.

That was when Kakkhan realized he was in trouble, for Sora had somehow managed to charm even _him_ into thinking the cat was destined for them. Or was it they who were destined for Sora? The cat certainly seemed to think it was the latter.

. . . Oh, Kami. He was definitely in trouble now.

Stupid cat.

:-:-:-:

MENRUI looked fascinated for some reason that Kakkhan couldn't figure out. "You're getting your girlfriend _what_ for graduation?" he asked from where he peered over the couch in the living room at Kakkhan, who was emerging from the kitchen. He held a plate piled high with foodstuffs in one hand.

"A cat." If Kakkhan sounded irritated, it was because this was the third time he'd had to say it. _Not_ because he didn't know what his twin was thinking.

"_Really?_"

"_Yes_, really. What's wrong with that?" Kakkhan rounded the couch and sat down on the end Menrui was _not_ occupying (the other two-thirds were taken up by his twin's languishing form and the huge sketchbook that was Menrui's current monstrosity).

Menrui looked taken aback. "Nothing," he insisted, waving his hands in placation. "I'm just . . . surprised, that's all." His customary teasing grin was returning by the end of the sentence.

"I don't see why." Really, he didn't. What was the big deal about cats anyway?

"It's just . . ." Menrui shrugged a shoulder. "I'd never have thought you'd get Gikuko a _pet_ for graduation."

Not liking the knowing grin Menrui now sported, Kakkhan raised an eyebrow. "What did you think I'd get her?"

"I don't know. Certainly not a cat." He pushed his glasses up his nose in a way that managed to convey _smug_. Somehow.

"I still don't know why you're surprised." Kakkhan just shook his head and bit into his first sandwich.

"You mean, you don't know how besotted you must be to even _think _about getting Gikuko-chan something, much less something _alive_?"

Kakkhan sprayed sandwich bits all over the living room table. _"What?" _he nearly shrieked (_nearly_, that was the important thing). "What are you talking about?"

Menrui nearly fell off the couch from laughing so hard. "Y-you should see the look on your face!" he garbled through his guffaws. "It's _priceless_!"

"Shut up, Menrui," Kakkhan made a swipe that made sure Menrui _did_ fall off the couch while somehow also keeping his plate of food level.

"Hey!" Menrui cried indignantly. "What was that for?"

"What do you think?" Kakkhan eyed him as he climbed up and flopped back onto the couch again. Menrui scowled at him as he rubbed his elbow where it had smacked against the table on the way down.

"Meanie."

Kakkhan just snorted and bit into his sandwich again. Then he got an indignant look of his own. "I get people stuff!" he grumbled through his mouthful. Swallowing, he continued, "What do you mean I'm 'besotted'?"

Menrui just raised his eyebrows. "If by 'getting people stuff,'" he quoted, complete with finger accompaniment, "you mean getting them _gift cards_, then _sure_, you get people stuff. But with Gikuko-chan, you're getting her something that is actually going to _mean_ something to her. Wait, does she even like cats?"

"Yeah." Kakkhan swallowed down another bite of his nearly-gone sandwich. "She was petting the alley cat we ran into the other day."

"See?" Menrui nudged him with a foot.

Kakkhan shrugged. "It's Gikuko," he said simply, as if that explained everything. Menrui cocked his head and regarded him for a moment, until Kakkhan looked up from demolishing his second sandwich inquiringly.

But Menrui only smiled. "Like I said, be-sot-ted," he said sing-song. Kakkhan rolled his eyes and made another swipe in answer.

"Ow!"

:-:-:-:

Gikuko also enjoyed playing with the other two cats she'd pointed out, Siamese not-twins, but her heart had already been stolen by a certain Tonkinese. The Siamese cats had no chance, although Uno did seem interested in the one that wandered over to her. Kakkhan only noticed this peripherally, for the brilliant smile curving Gikuko's lips as she buried her face in a purring Sora's fur was about all he could see at the moment.

"You like him?" he found himself asking, though the question was entirely unnecessary. Gikuko turned that beam of hers onto him and nodded anyway.

"Very much," she added, watching him from where she still hid her face in Sora's fur. Kakkhan's chest hurt at how adorable that was.

"Good," he said, voice tight for no reason. "Let's go home then."

"Oh!" Gikuko lifted her head then. "How we are going to get him home? I don't have a carrier for him."

"Don't worry," Uno said from where she still leaned on the wall. "We've already gotten that sorted out."

:-:-:-:

"BIG SISTER, could I ask you something?" Gikuko unexpectedly asked at the Watanabe dinner table. Kakkhan looked over from his seat on the opposite side of their corner of the table. Gikuko was fidgeting a bit, casting her eyes all over the place, but breathing deep and looking up properly, grey eyes wary.

"You just did, but go ahead," Uno said dryly. She stabbed a vegetable with her chopsticks and prepared to eat it.

"Don't be mean." Gikuko glowered at her older sister, then took up her fidgeting again. "I-I saw this cat the other day, when Kakkhan and I were coming back from the grocery store . . ."

Ah, that was it. Kakkhan sat back on his heels and prepared for the squealing.

Girls.

"Yeah?" Uno asked, speaking around the noodles she'd just scooped up. For being older than Gikuko, she certainly didn't have better manners. Maybe it was because she hadn't lived with her and Gikuko's father and stepmother as long. If Kakkhan remembered correctly, she'd run away from home when she was thirteen . . .

"—like cats?"

Kakkhan blinked at Gikuko, who had a tense look on her face, then at Uno, who was looking at him. there was a glint in Uno's eyes that Kakkhan couldn't figure out; then she looked at Gikuko.

"Do you want one?" she asked, tone perfectly bland. Kakkhan frowned, but accepted the grasping hand Gikuko reached out to him and covered it with his own free hand.

"Yes." Gikuko was no longer able to look either him or her sister in the eye. Instead she just stared at the hands Kakkhan was using to rub hers.

"Oh, Giku." Uno sighed. "I wish I could get you one. But I can't afford to have a pet. I'm barely keeping my head afloat as it is, with this house and food expenses."

Kakkhan gaped at Gikuko's older sister. This wasn't right! He'd only spoken to Uno yesterday, and she'd agreed, even been enthusiastic about it! Had she changed her mind and not told him. He winced as Gikuko's grip on his hand threatened to break it.

"Oh." Gikuko's voice was small. "I'm sorry. I—I didn't think about that."

"It's all right, little sister." Uno at least was not unkind. Kakkhan threw her a dirty look, but she caught his eye and gave him a slow wink. "We'll get you a cat someday."

Gikuko nodded, but she was clearly disheartened. Her hair lay low over her eyes, her mouth was turned down at the corners, and the one hand she had free was clenched tightly in her lap. Kakkhan glared again at Uno for good measure, then shifted over so he could gather Gikuko into one arm and kiss her on the hair.

"You tried," he told her in a whisper. "I'm proud of you for that."

Gikuko nodded again, but did not fold into his one-armed embrace as much as collapse into it. Here was yet another hope denied her, another dream crushed, a positive turned into a negative. Gikuko had ha entirely too much of that happen to her in her life, and Kakkhan hoped Uno knew what she was doing.

:-:-:-:

"You planned this whole thing? For me?" Gikuko was alight with astonished pleasure.

"Yep," Uno said cheerfully. "We wanted it to be a surprise."

"_She_ wanted it to be a surprise," Kakkhan interjected wryly. "I was all set to tell you."

"You, too?" Gikuko turned those big grey eyes on him and nearly melted him with the wonder in them. Sora brought him out of that, thankfully, when he decided to yowl right in Kakkhan's ear. "Ouch! What was that for, you stupid cat?"

Gikuko glared and held Sora away from him, but Sora had other ideas. In a flash, he had wriggled out of Gikuko's arms and leapt onto Kakkhan's shoulders, where he settled with a purr and rub of his head against Kakkhan's cheek. Kakkhan was so busy raising a hand to scratch Sora behind the ears that he nearly missed Uno's dry:

"It was his idea."

"What, to get me a cat?" Gikuko looked from her sister to Kakkhan. "Really?"

He could practically _feel_ his face softening. Damn Gikuko and her heart on her sleeve. He was going to get unbearably soft if she kept looking at him like that. "Yeah," he said, gruffly. "When you were petting that alley cat, you looked so happy I was determined to get you one of your own."

"But Uno . . . she said she couldn't afford . . ."

"Total and complete lie, I assure you." Uno pretended to sniff haughtily. "If I can afford to house you for a couple of days every week, then I can _certainly_ afford a cat."

Gikuko started to cry. "Thank you," she said, before Kakkhan could ask why she was crying. "You're—you're both too good to me. I—" She hugged Kakkhan fiercely about the waist, then went over to Uno to do the same with her.

Kakkhan watched her go, wondering why she was crying. Wasn't she happy? Then why was she practically sobbing into Uno's shoulder? He caught Uno's gaze over Gikuko's shoulder and shrugged helplessly. Uno, however, just smiled and mouthed, _It's okay_. Kakkhan didn't think so, but he supposed that she knew what Gikuko was going through better than he did.

Uno was also a girl. That seemed to help.

"I'll just get the carrier, and stuff," he said, gesturing vaguely. Uno nodded, but Gikuko drew back then, wiping her eyes, and held her hands out for Sora. _Thank you_, she said when Sora was safely purring in her arms. Kakkhan had the feeling it was for more than just giving Sora back. He just nodded, said, _You're welcome_, and left to get the carrier.

:-:-:-:

IT was so early the day after graduation that Menrui only snuffled at Kakkhan when he tried to wake him up to tell him where he was going. Kakkhan, amused by the face his twin was pulling in his sleep, decided to be magnanimous and let him sleep for once. Menrui had that drawing school for animation starting next week, and it wasn't likely he would be getting much sleep at all once it started.

He did leave a note saying _Gone to execute Operation G. G. C. _on the kitchen table for when Menrui woke enough to notice he was gone. Other than that, when he left the house, there were no signs where he had gone.

Sometimes Kakkhan felt like his life was always like that. He'd think maybe Menrui was better off with him constantly coming and going, mostly going. It really couldn't be healthy for the guy. Then he'd come home and see Menrui's grin upon sighting him and change his mind. He'd promise himself he'd do better. He'd do better and make it up to his brother, even though Menrui was probably used to it and even didn't let it bother him much, except for the times where it really did.

Sometimes it did suck to feel compelled to solve all the Blue Star Gang's problems _and _hang out with his girlfriend. He really should do something about that.

Then the street the Watanabes lived on came into view; Kakkhan shook himself for nearly missing it and carefully maneuvered Menrui's pickup in front of the Watanabe house, a nice two-story brown-and-white cottage-style that was as homey on the outside as in. He punched the horn once, then twice, and twisted to check the objects in the back seat were not immediately visible. They wanted this to be a surprise, after all, and part of that was actually getting to do the surprising. Gikuko would be wondering enough about what he and Uno were doing; no need to give her any clues prematurely.

He had to twitch the blankets over the travel carrier a bit more, but other than that everything was set. Now just to wait for the girls.

They didn't keep him waiting long. Kakkhan's breath caught when he saw Gikuko step out of the house in a yellow following knee-length dress he'd helped her shop for. Every time she wore that dress, Kakkhan remembered how stunning she'd been just trying it on (in fact, his jaw had refused to get up off of the floor for an hour). Now, when Gikuko had paired with some kind of dangly earrings and the sandals that showed off her ankles. She looked drop-dead gorgeous.

And that was all his. Wow.

He reached across to open the door for Gikuko before she reached it. "Hey," he greeted, hoping he sounded nonchalant. Probably not, not with Gikuko looking like _that_.

"Hey!" That grin of hers really should be illegal, it was so stunning. Kakkhan accepted the kiss she bestowed on him and gestured for her to get in. "Your sister coming?" he asked while she climbed in.

"Just a second, she had to get something." Probably one of Gikuko's shirts, since that was something the rescue people had said would help the cat Gikuko picked out to adjust to its new home.

"Kay."

"So where are we going? Big Sister said we were celebrating."

Kakkhan smiled at how Gikuko blinked at him expectantly. "We are," he told her, finding and squeezing her hand. "Don't worry. I think you'll like it."

"Oh, I'm not worried about that." Gikuko shook her head, making her earrings fly. "I'm just wondering why we had to get up so early."

"You'll find out." Kakkhan freed his hand as Uno came out of the house, looking not so bad herself. Still, Gikuko was the star. "Got everything?" he asked Uno when she reached the pickup. Uno just smirked at him even as she quickly tossed her purse and its accompanying shirt into the backseat. Kakkhan wanted to glare at her for being so careless—he had just gotten the blanket perfect!—but it probably would have alerted Gikuko to the backseat. Did not want. So he settled for snorting and making sure everyone was buckled in.

And then they were off.

:-:-:-:

Uno insisted on writing up papers that released Sora over to them. They all had to sign them, saying that payment was had in full and that Sora had nearly all of his shots up to date. (He would need to be given a booster shot in three weeks, but that was easily taken care of.) they also left with Sora's health and registration records and an exhortation to neuter him as soon as possible (although Gikuko didn't look enthused about that). All in all, as the papers got stuffed into Uno's purse, it was a lot of paperwork that probably wouldn't be touched ever again.

To top things off, Sora put a fuss up about going into the carrier, even when they put Gikuko's shirt in there to help things along. The handler said it was because Sora had been abandoned in a carrier, so the cat had some emotional damage from that. Kakkhan had to wonder how the rescue people had ever taken him to the vet then. In the end, they had to all but shove him in to get anywhere.

The drive home, additionally, was initially nerve-wracking, as Sora made quite a bit of noise, truly hair-raising squalls that made Kakkhan wish for ear plugs. Gikuko kept trying to soothe him, or better yet distract him with her fingers across the front of the carrier door, but no such luck. Halfway home, though, Sora's cries started lessening, until Gikuko cooed, "Aww, look at Sora sleep."

Uno twisted around to peer at the carrier, while Kakkhan, still driving, could only glance back and forth at the seats beside him, never mind the backseat. After nearly missing the exit, Kakkhan made himself concentrate, though it was hard with Gikuko and Uno both cooing like they were. It helped when they finally turned around, that was for sure.

Buildings, houses, and streets passed by. Conversation was livelier now that both Gikuko and Uno were paying attention: Gikuko especially was chattering away, eyes and cheeks bright with excitement. Uno and Kakkhan could only exchange smirks, then assume straight faces when Gikuko turned to them. (She scowled at them, amusingly.)

And then they were back at the Watanabe residence.

"We're here." Kakkhan parked and finally was able to twist around. Sora had woken up and was peering out of his cage, large green eyes blinking at him from the darkness of the cage. Kakkhan felt the hairs of his neck fluffing up as the cat stared at him unblinkingly, totally immobile, swathed by darkness. He wondered if Sora though he was a very large-sized prey.

Then Sora ruined it by giving a terrific yowl.

"Aagh!" Kakkhan rubbed his ear, scowled at the cat now scrabbling at the door with his paw. "I know you did that on purpose, you little menace."

"Sounds like a few people want out." As usual, Uno's humor and wry smirk were about as helpful as a wet tissue. Kakkhan rolled his eyes and moved to get out. He paused when Gikuko murmured, "Don't worry, we'll get you out soon."

Oh. She was talking to Sora. Kakkhan shook his head at himself for being disappointed. Gikuko scrambled out after him and immediately went to the back door. Kakkhan rolled his eyes again. So that was how it was going to be, abandoned because he made the mistake of getting his girlfriend a cat. Wonderful.

Uno must have read his mind. "She'll come back to you soon enough. Once the excitement over Sora wears off, she'll take off her blinks and pay attention to the world again."

"Can't happen soon enough." He wiped his face clean of his scowl when Gikuko emerged from the back door of the pickup with Sora's carrier in hand. "Ready to introduce Sora to his new home?"

"Yes!" Gikuko was flushed again, so excited that she forgot herself and linked her arm through Kakkhan's. "I can't wait!"

Kakkhan just had to laugh softly at that. Faced with Gikuko's patent happiness, he just could not be mad at her. "Go on then, get inside. I'll follow."

"You sure?" _Now_ Gikuko chose to be reticent, staring at him with eyes that were too timid for Kakkhan's liking. Probably she had realized how oblivious she'd just been, or as Gikuko would call it, "being selfish." Such an odd girl sometimes, was his Gikuko.

Damn her father and that rapist bastard for making her so scared, even around Kakkhan.

"M'sure. Go on." He nudged her to make sure she went. Gikuko blinked at him, looking lost for some reason, then nodded.

"Okay."

She then turned, purple hair swinging, and ran up the steps, careful not to jostle her carrier too much. Kakkhan watched her go, a pang in his chest for some inexplicable reason, then shook his head and followed.

Sometimes letting go was the best thing a guy could do to make sure his girl would come back.

:-:-:-:

"FOR the last time, Giku, we're not going to tell you where we're going!"

Gikuko shrank back into her seat, looking mulish and abashed in one. "Sorry," she said, abashed winning out.

"S'okay, Giku," Kakkhan said for about the thousandth time. "It's just annoying having you ask where're we going all the time."

"We're nearly there, anyway," Uno pointed out. She was holding the directions to their destination on a sheet of paper in her hands. "We have one more turn to make and then we're there."

"Really?" Gikuko stared out of the windshield.

"Which turn is it?" Kakkhan asked.

"The one at the next stoplight, a left. Then go all the way to the end."

"Got it."

The turn at the stoplight turned out to be the only turn they could make, into the driveway of what looked like a cell phone vendor's headquarters. When they continued on, however, the driveway turned out to be a road that had a tiny tributary which actually led to the headquarters. The main road wound and twisted for a bit, but then the sign was there, proclaiming "RESCUE SHELTER" and the shelter itself was just beyond it.

"No wonder they said to go all the way to the end," Kakkhan muttered while he finally drove into the parking lot. "Seriously."

The parking lot was relatively empty, so it wasn't hard to find a spot near the entrance. Kakkhan circled the pickup into the slot with relish; the sound of silence was loud after the long drive.

"Well." Kakkhan turned to Gikuko, who looked confused and a little disappointed. Boy would that change. "We're here."

Uno: "Disappointed?"

Gikuko hesitated, then nodded. "A little. I—yes."

Smirk. "Don't be," Uno said. "We're only getting you a cat, after all."

Grey eyes grew wide. "W-what?"

"A cat," Kakkhan joined in, smirking despite his best efforts. "You know, furry, four-legged, has a tail, meows a lot?"

"A—a cat?" She goggled between them, her surprised and dumbfounded expression plain to see. "A real cat?"

"A real cat." Uno seemed to be enjoying her sister's surprise as much as she was sad about it. Kakkhan could agree.

"Oh my Kami." Gikuko had sunk into her seat, Kakkhan was sure, from the sheer shock. Then she sprung up and was hugging the both of them, nearly taking Kakkhan's ears out with the squeals she emitted, and pushing at Kakkhan to open the door and get out already!

"Calm down! The cats can wait another few minutes while we get ourselves safely out of the car, you know."

"Come on, come on, come on!" Gikuko burst past Kakkhan as soon as she was able and bolted up the sidewalk. At the door she halted and danced impatiently from one foot to the other. Kakkhan and Uno, with one look at each other, both slowed their footsteps until they were practically at a crawl.

"Come _on_, you two!" Gikuko growled, actually _growled_, when she saw them taking their own sweet time. "We're wasting sunlight!" she wailed. She started to dart at Kakkhan, presumably to drag him to the door, but she caught herself and just stared at him pleadingly instead.

"All right, I'm coming. You don't have to look at me like that." True to his word, he finally resumed his normal walking place. "There. You happy now?"

A nod. Kakkhan then held his hand out for Gikuko to take and give a tug on, startling Kakkhan into a laugh. Gikuko just smiled impishly and then grabbed at Uno's arm.

"Let's go!" she cried.

Laughing, Kakkhan and Uno complied.

:-:-:-:

As soon as the carrier cage door was open, Sora was out and off like a shot, tumbling underneath the nearest bureau. Gikuko, of course, headed after him nearly as fast, while both Uno and Kakkhan ferried cat essentials up from the basement, where they had been stored until the fateful day. When Gikuko finally surfaced from trying to sweet-talk Sora out of hiding, she stopped and stared in fascination at all the objects bought just for Gikuko's cat.

"Wow," she marveled as a scratching post made its way out of the basement door. "You've really gone all out."

"Well, yeah," Uno teased. "Everything has to be just right for my baby sister's cat, after all."

Gikuko's startled look turned into a shy smile. "Thank you, big sister," she murmured, peeking out from under her eyelashes.

Uno shook her head. "No, no thanks," she scolded even as she walked by with her end of the scratching post. "You deserve this."

Gikuko had nothing to say to that. Then Sora, apparently tired of hiding, trotted out from underneath the bureau—"Oh!" Gikuko said—and started sauntering about.

"Let him look around," Uno said from where she and Kakkhan had finally set down the post. "Don't hover over him."

"I remember. Mei Lin liked to look around, too, whenever we'd take her new places." Gikuko watched Sora sniff at the couch for a moment, then visibly shook herself and straightened up. "Right, where do you want me?"

Uno gave Kakkhan the look he had begun to recognize as her version of "mischievous." "Well," she said, "you could bring up and fill the litter boxes . . ."

The look on Gikuko's face was priceless. Kakkhan had to admit that.

With Gikuko's help, however, the moving did proceed much faster. Bowls for food and water were laid down and filled, toys appeared throughout the house, and the station for grooming got set up. Throughout it all, Sora was a constant presence, leaping up onto counters or couches nearby and observing with a grave air as his empire came into being. Once he even batted at Uno for placing his cat bed in the wrong place. (The right spot turned out to be, after much trial and error, the darkest corner of the kitchen.)

He especially liked sidling up to Kakkhan and pouncing on him, with the result that Kakkhan either a) jumped and gave off a manly (manly!) yelp, or b) scowled and called him a "little menace."

"Aww, he just wants you to hold him, that's all," Gikuko told him after one such occurrence of the latter. "Go on, just hold him."

To Kakkhan's surprise, when he followed her suggestion, Sora settled right down and even began to purr. He wasn't sure how safe such a venture was on Sora's part, considering Kakkhan _was_ a Saiyan, but Sora seemed happy. Besides, if he could learn to treat Gikuko gently enough, then he could certainly do the same for a cat.

Little menace.

Menrui arrived sometime in the midst of all the chaos and caused even more ruckus over Sora, who, of course, lapped it up like the attention-seeking brat he was. If they didn't already have Theron, their dog, Kakkhan would have felt confident in betting that the presence of a cat would have soon graced his and Menrui's very own home. As it was, Menrui was probably going to be spending more time at the Watanabe house, maybe even as much as Kakkhan now did.

There was a troublesome thought.

Finally, however, everything settled down and the entire group could relax. Menrui left after dinner, saying that he had a friend he had to say goodbye to before he went off to animation school (which in fact he did. Nanao-chan just wasn't _just_ a friend, that was all.); he didn't manage to leave without leftovers, however, which Uno insisted upon giving him for later. Kakkhan quipped that "later" would arrive soon enough, and if Menrui wasn't careful, the "later" wouldn't be happening for _him_.

Menrui only smirked and said, _That's what you think_.

Uno went upstairs, as she had work the next day and needed to get some paperwork done beforehand. That left Kakkhan and Gikuko to themselves.

Gikuko set out to clean up the dinner table, even though it could have been left alone in Kakkhan's opinion. (So what if there were crumbs? It wouldn't hurt the table to leave them there for a night.) He was glad to see that Sora at least wasn't moving from his place on the back of the couch, thinking meanly that it was about time. But then he realized his line of thought and had to remind himself not to be jealous of cats.

Cats that were staring at him with unblinking green eyes.

"What do you want _now_, cat?" Kakkhan narrowed his eyes at the cause of his jealousy. Sora just looked at him, visibly unperturbed except for a slight flattening of his ears. Kakkhan narrowed his eyes even further, but then Gikuko called for help taking the garbage out; Kakkhan had to concede.

"You win, for now, you little menace," he told the cat. "But it will be clear that Gikuko's mine, you understand?"

Sora only flicked his tail at him and settled down into a curl. Grumbling about menaces that didn't appreciate threats properly, Kakkhan went into the kitchen to retrieve the trash and take it out. While he was outside, he made a side trip to get his book out of the pickup, having had the forethought to bring it along. He hadn't remembered about Menrui's date, but he wasn't going to go home to an empty house when he could spend the hours in better company (even if the better company wasn't being so good at the moment). And this way he wouldn't need to engage in pathetic contests of dominance with a cat; he'd have something else to focus on.

(He suspected that he'd lose every single one of the contests of dominance anyway—a blow to the ego. Stupid cat.)

And Gikuko could stand to be ignored a little bit, too, though he'd never take it as far as she had today, even if only unintentionally.

It really sucked to feel lonely when you already had a girlfriend. Girlfriends were supposed to make a guy happy, not go ditching them for cats at the first bat of a paw and cutesy meow. Kakkhan growled.

As such, he was in a right foul mood when he got back into the house. Fortunately, Gikuko was not in the kitchen when he breezed back in, or in the living room when he flopped onto the couch. Sora had gone off somewhere, probably with Gikuko wherever she was, so he was alone. Feeling oddly deflated at the lack of an audience, Kakkhan opened his book and was soon thoroughly engrossed.

He was so engrossed, in fact, that he only peripherally noticed when Gikuko came back in and sat by him. He leaned in briefly when she kissed his cheek, but by then the Hobbits were coming out of Moria, and Gandalf the Grey was facing off with the Balrog; he couldn't tear himself away. No matter how many times he read and reread The Lord of the Rings books, he was always riveted by them (even if Tolkien took forever to get to the point). The only way he could stop reading sometimes was if someone pulled the book out of his hands, and sometimes even that didn't work.

So deep was his trance that he didn't notice Sora sneaking in, padding softly over his knees and settling into his lap with a purr. He didn't notice when his hand moved to pet the cat, or when Sora started purring in earnest, shaking not only his own cat body but also Kakkhan's lap (which Kakkhan would later deny liking).

He did notice, however, when the Fellowship minus Gandalf was departing from Lothlórien, that Gikuko was staring at him, had been for some time. He looked over and saw the fondest expression on her face—

And for some reason, it took his breath away.

"Hey," he croaked, wondering if the look was for him or for Sora. His answer was a blinding grin and a kiss on his cheek.

"Hi," she finally said, leaning back. Kakkhan was surprised to see Sora in his lap (how'd _he_ get there, he wondered distractedly), but put that aside in favor of putting an arm around her. They rearranged themselves so that all of them were comfortably wrapped around each other: Gikuko's head on his shoulder, legs across his, Sora draped over her lap and his chest.

"Thank you for today," Gikuko said after several moments of contented silence. He looked over to see grey eyes looking at him, accompanied by a little smile that crinkled their edges. "You made me really happy."

"Mm. No problem." He quirked a smile of his own when she huffed a laugh.

"I mean it. You thought this up and did almost all of the research and the arrangements for _me_. All because I was petting a cat in the alley."

Kakkhan frowned at how insistent Gikuko was being. "What are you trying to say, Giku? I don't understand."

Midnight purple hair fell into her face as she bowed her head, picked at his shirt, she mumbled something that even he with his sharp hearing couldn't get.

He tried to get her to reiterate, but she had her face buried into his shoulder and wouldn't come out. "Giku?"

Another mumble, one that Kakkhan heard. "Uh—" he started, brain blinking out in the face of this unexpected stimulus. "I—" he tried again, but it was no use.

"Do you?"

He blinked at her, who had emerged from his shoulder to present him with wide eyes. His reflection blinked at him from the irises of those eyes; in the space of only a few breaths, he had an epiphany.

Oh.

Looks like Menrui was not the only one to think his present to Gikuko was out of character. Huffing a sigh at the thought of his brother's gloating, he gathered Gikuko up nice and tight (but not too tight) against him. "Of course I do," he told her worried look. "I mean, I got you a _cat_!"

That got a laugh out of her. But she struggled up from his grasp enough to say, earnest, "I do, too. I—"

"I know." This time when he pulled her down, he didn't let her up. "I _know_, Giku, even if it doesn't always seem like it. Shh."

"But—"

"You're upsetting Sora." Gikuko was immediately distracted by the very true statement: Sora, in fact, was grumbling at the two of them, paws kneading into Kakkhan's chest. He had to grin, though, at how his distraction tactic had worked: Gikuko wasn't focused on getting him to understand anymore.

Huh. Maybe this whole cat thing wasn't so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Written due to the author's momentary longing for a cat.


	9. VIa. Fragments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gikuko breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written as a writing sample for college summer writing class 2010. Warning: This chapter features the beginning of recovery from rape, so flashbacks, inability to be touched, and twisty-turny thoughts. Please proceed carefully.
> 
> Features: Spoilers for Chapter Seventeen of Kakkhan II, "Demonic Inheritance" and for a character (Gikuko) from Kakkhan III.

It was a long time in coming, Gikuko knew. She'd always wondered why she hadn't reacted before this, why she seemed to feel none of the symptoms she had researched over and over. Part of her was relieved that it had happened; it meant that she could finally get over this. The rest of her hated that it had to happen just when the going with Kakkhan was getting good.

"Giku?" Large hands fluttered over her skin, not quite landing, but Gikuko drew away from them. Panic was a sudden claw at her throat as her skin prickled and she tightened her arms around herself.

"Don't touch me," she chanted, trying to curl in. The presence at her back lifted away, but the memory continued, blue carpet shifting to dingy red, the floor becoming dirty sheets. She could see her hands spread out before her, her fingers dwarfed by the hand clenched around her wrist—

"No!" She scrambled away from the phantom sensations, searched for something real. Her eyes skittered over the objects in the room, bed, nightstand, bookcase, desk, Kakkhan. Wait, Kakkhan. He wasn't part of the dream. Her skin prickled when she thought about touching him, but she just wanted the nightmare to stop. Kakkhan was good at making nightmares stop. If only he'd get that look off of his face, like she was a wild animal or something. It made her feel like wiping it off. Huh, maybe she should wipe it off. Maybe then she'd get rid of these phantoms.

But when she stepped toward him, Kakkhan didn't move. He stayed next to the bookcase while she advanced on him. Why wasn't he moving? Wasn't he afraid of her? She shivered again, felt more than saw the hand that rose through the shadows, and jerked back. The hand snapped away, but she didn't care, for there were hands all over her and she couldn't get them off.

She sank to the floor, but the hands followed her. Making herself a ball didn't help, so she jumped to her feet and ran. Out of the bedroom and into the living room, where, yes, there was a couch. Couch was okay. The hands had never touched her on a couch. She scrambled into it and huddled, clutching her arms and knees against her front and pressing her back into the back of the couch. There she shivered, the creak of the couch a welcome dissonance against her memories, and hated herself while her world fell apart.

She'd had sex before. Why was it now, the first time with Kakkhan, that this happened? Kakkhan was the only boyfriend she'd trusted. Did this mean he wasn't the one for her? Well, he wouldn't want her now anyway. She was dirty, weak, and broken. She'd always been broken, Gikuko thought, she just hadn't realized it. What an idiot she was to think that she deserved to be loved. She'd been broken all these years, and had fooled herself into thinking she was okay.

She'd been broken all these years, and didn't know if she'd ever be able to put herself back together.


	10. VIb. Antipathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a sixty/forty chance Kakkhan and Gikuko would get their bond back in SDK. This is the forty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/Spoilers: End of SDK. AU of the reunion scene in the last chapter.

_‘Kakkhan, Legendary Lord, meet the Lady Ki Breaker, Watanabe Gikuko.’_

Kakkhan looked up from the table to see Tenna hovering over him, a nervous look on her face. Next to her stood a woman, of a height with Tenna, with midnight purple hair, gray eyes, and curves through her prim clothing. A sudden flash of intuition hit him—this was the woman of his memories!—but nothing else followed. No world-shattering epiphany happened, even when he reached to shake her hand. He felt nothing.

Watanabe was gorgeous, but he didn’t have a reaction to that, either. It was curious, and not a little disappointing.

_‘Nice to meet you,’_ he said, keeping the wonder out of his voice without thinking. Watanabe (was that an Earth last name? Watanabe looked Human) returned his greeting with equal fervor. As their hands came apart, Kakkhan still felt nothing, not even, say, disappointment that Watanabe obviously had no interest in him.

That he had feelings about. It was not normal for a red-blooded Saiyan such as he to be unattracted to a female Human like Watanabe. He’d have to talk to Tenna or Ilowe about this.

Especially when Tenna had such a heart-broken expression on her face.

:-:-:-:

Gikuko didn’t like him on sight.

She didn’t know what it was about Kakkhan that put her off so much. Maybe his holier-than-thou attitude, or the way he hung back and made sarcastic comments, instead of participating in the group. She also didn’t like the way everyone deferred to him; in her opinion it only reinforced his attitude problem, and he didn’t deserve it anyway. But maybe it was the way, when she first saw him, a frisson of pain had jerked through her head. A memory had arisen of spidery limbs, a malicious grin wide in a white face, and most of all a strong undercurrent of fear.

Yes, she was afraid of him. She had the weird feeling that she shouldn’t be, that Kakkhan wasn’t malevolent. But she couldn’t get past that glance of memory. Whenever she accidentally caught a glimpse of Kakkhan, she had the same reaction each time: roll and pitch of her stomach, tightened throat, quickened breathing. It was similar to her reaction whenever she thought about Saito (dear Gods), but without the edge of panic that Saito brought, somehow. It was confusing.

Luckily, Kakkhan didn’t seem interested in her other than perfunctory courtesy. He didn’t look at her or behave towards her in any special way, except maybe for a lack of snarky commentary (which she rather appreciated). As the night wore on, and Kakkhan didn’t exhibit any threatening behavior (but maybe it was there, under his skin, waiting to burst free), she began to relax.

Yes, his attitude made her bristle. No, she didn’t see what was so great about him that his return merited so much fanfare. She was beginning to see that sarcasm was his mode of affection for everyone else (it helped that he actually laughed at one of Ilowe’s awful, awful jokes), but it still grated on her nerves. She was counting the minutes until this reunion was over, just so she could get away from him and be able to breathe. 

Tenna had said Gikuko would like Kakkhan. Never had she been more wrong.


	11. VIc. Breakup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could not possibly have heard her right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/Spoilers: AU to Chapter Seventeen/Eighteen of SDK. Implied xenophobia. Broken hearts. :'(

He could only stare at her in numbness.

“Kakkhan, I’m sorry, but . . .” Catherine shifted her weight from one foot to the other, eyes going off to the side but coming back. Her grey eyes were apprehensive but resolved.

He could not possibly have heard her right.

“Say something.” Upset had entered Catherine’s body language now; she was standing upright, her attention focused on him, her face creasing with pain. He couldn’t find it in him to be unhappy about that.

She was doing it. She was honestly leaving him because he’d made the mistake of telling her what, who, he was. A Saiyan, and not human.

“Kakkhan…” He couldn’t take it anymore. The plaintive tone of her voice, her pleading, what right had she to them when she was the one tearing his heart out? And yet she stood there, asking him to understand.

He couldn’t stand the sight of her. “Don’t come near me,” he snapped when Catherine would have taken a step towards him. She straightened up, inhaling sharply, sighing when she looked at Kakkhan.

“Of course,” she said, smoothing her fingers down her skirt. The same skirt that Kakkhan had told her she made beautiful. “I . . . I’ll come around to get my things later, then. I, I’ll see you around?”

Kakkhan turned away, disgusted with her and himself both. Her for doing this, and himself for being so . . . affected. Gods, she had really gotten to him, hadn’t she? Maybe this was the plan all along, to worm her way into his heart, such as he thought he’d never get her out, and then to wrench away at the best moment for maximum damage. It must have been, because Catherine couldn’t have done it any better.

He heard her breathing in again, as if to say something, but he kept his eyes trained on the wall above his desk.

“…I’m sorry.”

She turned, and was gone.

The only thing he could feel besides the overwhelming, drowning loss was the anger. Anger that another being had spurned him, left him when he needed her most, and whose departure ripped him apart at the heart. After Menrui, he’d sworn never to open up to anyone again. He made the same vow now, white light beginning to take over his vision and flaring out in an aura around him.


	12. VIIIa. a snippet of sleepy cuddling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Gikuko and Kakkhan meet later than in canon, but some things about their relationship don't change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Present tense; AU; mentions drunkenness, a troubled past; sweet. ~339 words. Unbetaed. (Also, warning for OOC hangover behavior.)

There isn’t much that Gikuko remembers from last night. Most of what she does remember is hazy, so it doesn’t count. But when the arm around her naked waist slips off as she sits up, it takes her no more than a second to determine if she enjoyed it or not. Relaxing, she runs her hand over the man’s muscular back, bends to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Wha—” He blinks up at her, eyes muzzy with sleep. She rubs his back again, tilts her head.

“Remember me?” she asks softly, out of deference to the hangover she has. He blinks some more before recognition clears the sleepiness away.

“Oh yeah, the girl who wouldn’t stop drinking.” He smiles a slow smile at her, the sleepy kin to the one which had taken her breath away and made her keep drinking long past her limits.

“It’s all your fault,” she tells him. Her hand strays into his hair, which earns her a sigh. Smiling, she cards her fingers more thoroughly through the black strands; Kakkhan liquefies into the bed.

“Hey,” he mumbles into the pillow. “Do you need a—hrrrrrnnnn—ride anywhere?” His yawn breaks his sentence in half.

Gikuko’s smile freezes. “Yeah, back to my place.” She doesn’t stop running her fingers through Kakkhan’s hair. On impulse, she scoots down so she can put her head on Kakkhan’s shoulder. “Can I stay a bit longer?” she asks.

“Sure” is the muffled reply. “Feed you breakfast.” Kakkhan’s second yawn lifts Gikuko up with the force it exerts on his upper body. She nuzzles into his neck, settles there with a sigh. Her arm steals across his back, joined by her leg across his. The combination of their steady breathing serves to make Gikuko’s eyes drift closed, to make every muscle she has unwind.

For the second time in a long time, Gikuko is able to sleep uninterrupted with someone else in the bed with her.


	13. IXa. Encircle Happiness with Your Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakkhan, Gikuko thought, gazing down at her, was a beautiful girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the genderfuck, folks. Kakkhan is a girl! There's femmslash! This is also the first story in the Encircling Happiness 'verse, but which promises to balloon into more if'n I am not careful. (Depends on if I want to be careful or not.)
> 
> _Warnings/Spoilers:_ Girl!Kakkhan, Femmslash (!), cuddling, fluff; language; seriously AU.
> 
> What This Is: A story written to the LJ community cliche_bingo prompt of: Genderbender, and features girl!Kakkhan as a result. When I say "seriously AU," I mean seriously AU.

Gikuko stepped back from the stove and wiped an arm over her sweaty forehead, breathing a sigh of triumph. There, she could let the noodles simmer for a while before putting everything else in. It looked like it was going to be a good batch, too, which relieved her. Dinner today would be the best that she could make it.

Satisfied she had done everything she needed for the moment, she slipped the apron over her head. The apron went on a row of hooks on the wall next to the stove, which was far away enough that the apron wouldn't burn. Checking that her vegetables were cooking nicely once again, she turned and flicked her eyes over the rest of the kitchen: refrigerator on the left, cabinets on the far wall, breakfast nook in the other corner, dishwasher; all clean and orderly. The only things not up to standard were the pots and pans in or near the sink or on the stove waiting to be washed or to be used, but she'd deal with those later. For now she was going to find Kakkhan and hope her partner was up for some snuggling. She'd had a long day.

Kakkhan wasn't in either the office or the television room, surprisingly, but in the living room instead, looking intent on the computer in her lap as she sat on the couch. Gikuko looked curiously over her shoulder as she slid onto the couch next to her.

"What are you reading?" she asked, snuggling up to Kakkhan and wrapping her arms around her waist. Hooking her chin on Kakkhan's shoulder, she tried to decipher what had her partner so riveted.

"What is this?" Blinking, she read again the sentence she'd just seen; nope, didn't make any more sense the second time around. She turned her head a little so she could ask the question once more, but to Kakkhan directly, but trailed off when she saw the fond and amused look on Kakkhan's face.

"What?" she asked instead, something warm pooling in her stomach and in her cheeks at the look. The fondness deepened.

"You," Kakkhan said, "are just so damn cute sometimes." Her voice was still hoarse from the cold she'd just recently gotten over; Gikuko thought wistfully that if it stayed that way, she wouldn't mind. It was more than kind of sexy like that.

"I am?" Gikuko stretched forward so she could rub her cheek against Kakkhan's; the cheek under hers bunched up as Kakkhan smiled.

"Hi," Gikuko said softly. It wasn't often that she managed to attract Kakkhan's attention away from her computer like this, especially if she was playing a game; then, Kakkhan pushed her away with a snap of _You're ruining my concentration_. Those times Gikuko tried not to feel too hurt, but she usually got an apology later on that made it worth it. Moreover, Gikuko thought that she was beginning to recognize what she called Kakkhan's "game pose"—a peculiar hunching of the shoulders and darting to the eyes that was starting to warn her off. Maybe there would be fewer incidents in the future.

The apologies were kind of fun, though.

For now, Kakkhan just smiled at her, touched their foreheads together. "Hi," she returned. One of her hands lifted from the laptop's keyboard and covered Gikuko's arm just under her breasts; Gikuko tightened her embrace in a brief squeeze.

"Love you." Gikuko held her breath. Sometimes, even now saying that made Kakkhan freeze up and—not pull away, but be distinctly stiff and uncomfortable until Gikuko backed off. But sometimes . . . Sometimes Kakkhan's face would soften, and she'd relax even more, and, increasingly, even return the sentiment.

"Love you, too," she said now, face as soft and body as relaxed in Gikuko's arms as Gikuko had imagined. But then she turned and leaned forward, breaking Gikuko's hold on her. Gikuko let her go, wondering for a flash of a second if Kakkhan had developed a third reaction, soft face combined with pulling away.

But Kakkhan was only putting her laptop with its incomprehensible screen on the coffee table (on a placemat picked out for that very purpose, she was pleased to notice); when she leaned back in, she tuned into Gikuko's body and nuzzled into her neck. Delighted, Gikuko wrapped her arms around Kakkhan's shoulders and rubbed her cheek against Kakkhan's silky spiky hair.

Kakkhan, Gikuko thought, gazing down at her, was a beautiful girl. Most of the time, her holier-than-thou attitude and boy's clothes hid that, but whenever she was peaceful and content like this, thick eyelashes fluttering against her cheek, the realization just about socked Gikuko in the chest, leaving her breathless.

Yet she could remember a time when Kakkhan wouldn't even look at her, back when they had barely been more than passing strangers, and Gikuko had thought she was beautiful then, too. With long limbs, a sleek, streamlined body from head to toe, and dark eyes that speared with a single glance, Kakkhan was an instantly arresting presence to any around her. The fact that she had been a model at the time had only served to enhance an already natural effect, flattering high fashion clothes and tasteful makeup stunning on a woman with enough poise and sauciness to pull them off.

The difference here from there, however, was that Kakkhan was happy. Here, in Gikuko's arms, in clothes that a year or so ago she wouldn't have been allowed to be caught dead in, with absolutely no makeup and the addition of multiple earrings in the cartilage of both ears, she yet glowed softly, where once her inner fire had been all-consuming in its rage and no amount of knocking the fashion world (or Gikuko) off of its feet had been enough to satisfy it. She'd been, as Kakkhan put it, "fucked up then, with a fucked up girlfriend, a screwy relationship with the perverts behind the cameras, and hurting so badly deep inside that the only way to get rid of it even slightly was to try and hurt the world back."

Gikuko didn't know all of the things that had happened to cause Kakkhan to feel that way, or why she had decided to take up modeling to reach her goal of taking revenge on the world, but she knew, had known within five minutes of first seeing Kakkhan in her hideous fur coat, ankle-breaking stilettos, and dangly earrings, that that life had not been for her. Misery had been her middle name underneath all the sparking eyes full of fire and brimstone, a soul slowly dying by degrees as the course she'd chosen ate her up little by little with greedy hands.

Kakkhan here was so different from Kakkhan then that they were barely the same person at all.

"What are you thinking about?" Kakkhan asked softly, drawing Gikuko's gaze down to her own.

She looked curious, with a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth that Gikuko resisted kissing only long enough to say, "You," before leaning down. Kakkhan's smile unfurled with a hum of pleasure and she kissed back, turning a simple peck into a curl of tongues that ended far too soon for Gikuko's liking. But Kakkhan's "I hear water boiling" reminded Gikuko of the noodles she'd left in the kitchen, so with a sigh, she untangled herself from Kakkhan (who promptly plucked the laptop back off the coffee table) and rose from the couch to start making the rest of dinner.

A hand on her wrist stopped her before she went far; Gikuko turned to see Kakkhan looking up at her, still with that soft, contented look. "Happy year-and-a-half anniversary," she said, tugging Gikuko a little closer so she could kiss the palm of her hand. Warmth suffusing her, Gikuko smiled and bent down to give Kakkhan another peck.

"Happy year-and-a-half anniversary, Kakkhan."

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Darn you, cliché_bingo, for messing up even my heterosexual nearly-OC OTP! (shakes fist)
> 
> Seriously, my LJ tag for this? "I blame cliche_bingo" *g*


	14. IXa.i. an instance of female!Kakkhan and Gikuko flirting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they do what it says on the tin. (Perhaps there's some truth in advertising after all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More female Kakkhan/Gikuko. This is set after they’ve started dating, and Kunisada Keiko is along for the ride. Is the prequel to another snippet in which Kunisada and Kakkhan discuss past and present relationships. ~665 words; Encircling Happiness ‘verse; femmslash; unbeta-ed; flirting.

“Oh, well, hello, _sexy_.”

As she came into the brightly lit front room of her apartment, Gikuko flushed. Kakkhan’s perusal was frankly appreciative as they wandered up and down her body. Smiling, she held her hand out for her girlfriend to take, only to be pulled into a kiss that turned her knees to jelly. Well, if this was the reaction she got, then obviously she needed to wear mid-thigh length, flowing skirts and heels more often.

When the kiss ended, she had to clear her throat. “So,” nope, she still sounded far too husky, “you like how I look?”

Kakkhan’s smoky look was all she needed for an answer.

Oh, yeah, definitely needed to wear skirts more often, and maybe the backless shirt, too, if the way Kakkhan’s hand crept up her back was any indication. If she was reading the look in Kakkhan’s eye right, then Gikuko would be a very lucky woman tonight. Maybe she’d finally find out just why Kakkhan liked that dildo so much. Skirts, heels, and risqué shirts were something to keep in mind for future reference, then.

“I like that look in your eye,” Kakkhan told her, propelling her to nestle into Kakkhan’s side. Smiling, Gikuko dropped her eyes from Kakkhan’s and didn’t answer. Instead, she smoothed the shoulder of Kakkhan’s own silken risqué, then leaned forward and lapped at Kakkhan’s earlobe. Her breath quickened at the breathy gasp and very quiet moan she got, which she doubted anyone but she had heard. She knew she had a satisfied smile on her face when she drew back and saw that Kakkhan’s eyes were darkened, her breath just that bit faster. Kakkhan’s voice was a raspy murmur when she said, “So that’s what that is.” Her hand drifted higher on Gikuko’s back to settle just below her shoulder blades. “Miss Watanabe,” she said, “I do believe you are flirting with me.”

Gikuko lifted her chin against Kakkhan’s mock-grave tone. “Yes, I am,” she said, “and I plan to do it all night long.”

Kakkhan’s smile was lazy. “Oh, don’t worry, I highly approve.”

They shared equally smoky glances until a hand snapped its fingers between them. Then they looked up to see that the rest of the party, madly grinning Ilowe, expressionless Hodaia, and collar-pulling Anton, were waiting for them. Tenna, right next to them, couldn’t quite contain her grin despite the exasperated huff she gave.

“If you two horndogs,” Gikuko could feel the heat flooding her cheeks, “are quite done, we’re ready to go. You can play octopus all you want once we move this to the club. We just need to _go_.”

“You’re just jealous we turned your boyfriend on,” Kakkhan retorted. Nonetheless, she reluctantly let Gikuko go, who despite blushing fit to be tied couldn’t resist stealing another kiss (that Kakkhan would have deepened had Gikuko not pulled back in time). Wagging her finger with a playful tut, she turned to scoop up her shawl, purred when warm hands stroked up her back.

“Here, let me,” and Kakkhan was draping her shawl over her shoulders, fingers a hot trail over her bare shoulders. A squeeze, and Kakkhan was stepping out of her personal space, leaving Gikuko cool and breathless.

Licking her lips, she looked around to see Tenna, glaring, straightening Anton’s collar; Ilowe flashing her a thumbs-up, making her laugh; past Hodaia to the last occupant of the room. She found Kunisada Keiko’s cool gaze upon her giving her a thorough inspection. That scrutiny and the taste of Kakkhan’s lip gloss caused Gikuko to blush again, drop her gaze. But then Kakkhan returned, her hand outstretched, face affectionate, and she couldn’t help smiling, didn’t want not to smile. Reaching out, she accepted her girlfriend’s hand, turned her back on Kunisada’s judgmental gaze, and strode forward. Anticipation became a renewed thrum in her belly when Kakkhan leaned over and said, “Just think, we have all night to flirt.”

Mmm, and she was so looking forward to it.


	15. IXb. Blood is Thicker than Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long lost, actual twins Menrui and Kakkhan take steps to rectify their long lost problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A change from my usual Kakkuko AUs! In this one, Kakkhan and Menrui are actual twins, were separated at birth, and sadly grew up apart. Kakkhan went on to Giendon, and Menrui grew up as original Gohan would have, only more awesome, because he's Menrui. (I.e. Saiyaman never exists.)

For as long as he could remember, Menrui had always been lonely. He’d floated through life as if in a bubble, or over a chasm from other people. Oh, he had friends, and was on at least “hi” terms with many more, but he’d never felt close to any of them. Not the way he’d seen others be close, best friends huddling close over a magazine or a game, or doing things together at West City’s enormous pedestrian shopping mall, or simply preferring each other’s company over others’. Menrui had had none of that in his relationships with other people; the closest he’d gotten was Midori asking him over to a party one time. He’d had to decline, never been invited again since.

When his mother had told Menrui that he was actually one of two twins, he’d been ecstatic. It had explained so much about his life: why he’d constantly reached out for someone who wasn’t there; why there had always seemed to be a hole in their family, even after Goten was born; why no one had been enough. His joy had come crashing down when he learned that his twin had been stolen away at two and never seen again; but he had vowed to find his brother no matter what, even if it took him to the stars.

And he had, he had found him, and he was here at the Ina City train station, all by himself, waiting for someone who was a complete stranger.

Loneliness was enough to drive a person to do many things, but now that he was here, this strange place of Ina City, Menrui wasn’t sure that loneliness was a reason enough anymore. It shouldn’t have been enough to wipe out his common sense entirely, anyway; he should have brought someone with him, or at least let Bulma know what he’d been planning. Instead, he’d rushed off like a harebrained idiot, and if this guy didn’t show up soon, before the last train left—

“Hey.” The voice cut through the chatter of the train station easily. Menrui looked up, nearly had to grab his chair in an effort not to lose his balance. The stranger looked exactly like Menrui, right down to the weird nose that no one else in the family had. Perhaps his hair was arranged a mite differently, he slouched rather than stood up straight, and he dressed differently, but if one took that away . . .

Kami, he really did look exactly like Menrui. Menrui wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Then he met the stranger’s gaze. Warmth flooded him with the force of a tidal wave, instantly, finally filling up the spots in Menrui empty for so long. He found himself smiling from ear to ear, watched as the stranger’s mouth curled up at the ends.

“We should probably introduce ourselves, even if we do know each other’s names already,” the stranger said. Holding out his hand, he announced, “Kakkhan.”

“Menrui.” He reached out to clasp Kakkhan’s hand. The handshake would seal a moment that had changed Menrui’s life in more ways than he could possibly imagine.

The handshake turned into an arm around the shoulders; startled, Menrui blinked at Kakkhan, who was looking at him slyly. “Shall we go and wreak havoc?” His eyebrow jumped; his smirk widened; his eyes were mischievous. “I know a couple of people we can confuse the hell out of.”

Just like that, Menrui wasn’t lonely anymore.


	16. Xa. Geisha!Gikuko, Businessman!Kakkhan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon first glance, the stranger didn’t look like he would turn Gikuko’s world upside down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by _Memoirs of a Geisha_. In fact, whatever information about geisha you find in here is ripped directly from that novel. Whatever I get wrong is entirely my fault. Stupid American. *hits self* This humble person apologizes most grievously for any especially egregious errors contained within this story. *prostrates*

The Yamaguchi sitting room was large and sparse, furnished with a dark bureau along one wall and a rare painting of the Gardens of Serenity and Placidity on another. The doors between them opened up to the side garden courtyard, a beautiful bloom of Japanese maples, tasteful arrangements of flowers, and carefully maintained walks gliding towards the pond and its jade fountain in the middle. It was a nice picture, especially since the sitting room was unobstructed in its view. Sitting at the table that dominated the sitting room, Gikuko wished she could be out there instead of inside, or better yet, be one of the butterflies she could see floating around the flowers.

Instead, she was at the table with her father and stepmother having tea with the man who would change her life.

Upon first glance, the stranger didn’t look like he would turn Gikuko’s world upside down. He was tall, taller than she, had black hair smoothed back, an emotionless face, and the crisp business suit that marked him as a colleague of Gikuko’s father, Isoroku. Only the alertness present in the quick dart of the stranger’s eyes made him out to be more than any ordinary colleague, and the perfectly comfortable way he sat in Isoroku’s presence. Only Isoroku’s most respected associate, Karamorita Shō, was equally comfortable; every other businessman fidgeted while on the other end of Isoroku’s stare.

At last, Isoroku broke the silence. “Mr. Tairyoku, thank you for meeting with me today,” he said.

Gikuko thought that there was also a sense of . . . constraint to the stranger that she could not figure out. It was not tense, in that he did not hold himself stiffly, but more a sense of restrained patience. Gikuko couldn’t explain it. All she knew was that Mr. Tairyoku’s constraint was focused on her father, and it was because of her.

“Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, Mr. Yamaguchi,” the stranger replied, the first time Gikuko had heard him speak. The deep register of his voice sent a shiver down Gikuko’s spine that she hid by casting her eyes down to the table.

No one said anything while Mrs. Nakamura came in with the tea. After she bowed and left, Gikuko waited for her father’s nod before she began to serve the tea. First her father, then Stepmother; both received their teas coldly, nary a word of gratitude passing through their lips. Gikuko turned towards Mr. Tairyoku, who did not look at her kneeling next to him. But she knew what could change that.

Holding the tea kettle delicately, she pulled the sleeve from her wrist and held it away while she poured the tea. Peeking up from beneath her eyelashes, she saw that her tactic was successful: Mr. Tairyoku’s eyes were latched onto her exposed skin. Gikuko redirected her attention to the tea just in time to keep from overfilling the cup. She looked up again to hand the cup to its recipient and met black eyes lit by a light as distant as the morning star. A hazy thought occurred to her that Mr. Tairyoku must have very good constraint indeed, to be able to restrain all that anger and power. Power that was overwhelming. No wonder Mr. Tairyoku had been able to force her father into a corner. Isoroku seemed to pale in comparison.

The spell was broken when the teacup was taken from Gikuko’s hands. Blinking, Gikuko looked away, her heart beating madly.

Oh, yes, this man who was to be her husband would turn her life upside down in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started to write this in full and then never quite finished it. Yet it kept bouncing around the brain, so I decided to file it correctly. Who knows, I may yet add the second part that inspired me to write this drivel. &gt;.&gt;
> 
> Also, the reason this doesn't have a name like the others is because it was actually part of a file of AUs called "Romping Plot Horses," and I'm too lazy to come up with one. For this or the other ones I'm uploading. Oops.


	17. Xb. Meeting Uno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uno's first impression of Kakkhan is not favorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very rough draft of what was going to be an future!ficlet of Kakkhan and Gikuko going to meet Gikuko's sister, Uno. I have no plans to go back and pretty it up, but I thought I'd post it so it could see the dust motes shining in the light of day.

Uno Watanabe stood still upon the steps leading into the living room. She wanted not to disturb the inhabitants of said room, as they were in a position unobserved until then. Her little sister, with their father’s midnight purple hair falling across her face, was leaning her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder. The boyfriend, on the other hand, was paying no attention to her, instead intent on the computer in his lap.

Uno’s stomach clenched. Kakkhan Tairyoku was completely unlike her little sister’s ex-boyfriend in that he didn’t overtly assert his dominance of Gikuko’s actions. But the undertone was there, nor was he very demonstrative with her. Yet Gikuko smiled whenever he raised an eyebrow at her, laughed more often than not whenever he said something to her. Gikuko was happier than Uno had ever seen her with him, and Uno just didn’t understand it. What was it about him that Gikuko was attracted to? What did she see in him that Uno couldn’t?

–

Uno tensed as she saw the scene. Kakkhan had backed Gikuko up against the counter, was leaning over her with his hands on the cabinets behind Gikuko’s head. Gikuko had a grip on Kakkhan’s shirt and was looking up at Kakkhan’s face, but Uno couldn’t quite make it out from where Kakkhan’s arm was blocking it. Kakkhan bent down; Uno prepared to barge in and save her sister from more abuse.

But instead of – whatever it was that Uno expected to happen – Gikuko leaned around Kakkhan, an exasperated look on her face. “You can come out, big sister.”

The look Kakkhan sent over his shoulder didn’t make Uno feel any better.

–

“Big sister, you have got to trust me! You haven’t spent enough time around Kakkhan to know what he’s truly like. You don’t even talk to him, in fact! He deserves a chance to prove himself.”

“But Gikuko, he could hurt you! You’d think you would have learned that by now!”

Gikuko’s face darkened. “Apologize.” She jutted her chin out. “Apologize or I’m leaving right this instant.”

“Giku—”

The door slammed with all the force her little sister’s full fury could inflict.

–

“You need to talk to her, Gikuko. She’s your sister, and you have to admit that she had the right to be worried about you.”

“I know, but . . . she should have given you a chance. She had no right to brush you off like that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t exactly help matters anyway. I refuse to be other than who I am, and, frankly, I’ve got some things with that bastard in common.”

“What? No you don’t! Don’t tell me you’re taking my sister’s side!”

“I’m just saying, your sister has a point. But, listen to me, but that point has changed. You’re no longer the woman you were when she last knew you. You have the responsibility to show her how much you have changed.”

“….I suppose.”

“You know I’m right, Giku.”

“…”

*Kiss* “I think, though, that I’d better not be there. This should be just between you and her.”

–

“Big sister, we’re going to have a talk, and you’re going to listen to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Uno.


	18. Xc. Art Fanatic!Gikuko, Roommate!Kakkhan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one in which Gikuko was supposed to be persistent but ended up dazzled. (Fangirl. xD)

They had met through Tenna, who had discovered Gikuko’s love and adoration of Khlarlane Filda’s art prints and immediately thought of Ilowe. Ilowe had grinned and invited Gikuko over to his house to view his collection, to many protestations of gratitude and I’m-not-worthy bows. Hence, Gikuko now found herself walking up to the porch of a modest-sized two-story house, with cottage-like shutters, a sloped roof, a charming little turret, and a colorfully decorated yard. The near-riot of flowers waving at Gikuko brightened her excited smile and nearly blinded Ilowe when he opened the door at her knock.

“Goodness, you’re certainly energetic today,” he commented with a teasing smile as he stepped back to let her in. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to tone it down a bit, just until we get to my part of the house. My flatmate has super-sensitive hearing, and he hates to be interrupted when he’s gaming.”

“Your flatmate?” she asked as she slipped her shoes off. Ilowe looked between her and her shoes for a moment, then evidently decided to shrug it off.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about him too much, he won’t bother us.” With that said, Ilowe led Gikuko into the living room and past what seemed to be a den. ‘Flatmate,’ Ilowe mouthed at Gikuko; they tiptoed past, Gikuko stifling her laughter at Ilowe’s exaggerated motions. They put the kitchen and the little back room between them and the den before Ilowe heaved a huge sigh.

“There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now you can be all excited. Because!” he announced with a dramatic flair, “the next room iiiiis . . . the gallery!” He flung open the door that did not lead outside and beckoned for Gikuko to see. “For your viewing pleasure, the works of . . . Khlarlane Filda!”

Color and movement exploded in Gikuko’s eyes. Khlarlane Filda was an artist of dynamic relationships, finding and expressing the energy involved in man’s interaction with his world. Reality seemed solid and only hinted at in one painting, every stroke able to interpreted in several different ways. A birdcage with a Sphinx in it became the viewer watching a Griffin through a window became a bird spreading its wings over a forested landscape, and then back to the birdcage. Another was a cat’s eye shifted into a tiger-striped marble turned into a snow glass ball. Time was just a whirl of brushstrokes on canvas – Gikuko literally did not know how much of it had passed when she looked up and saw Ilowe conversing with a stranger.

“—almost out of milk,” the stranger was saying. He was tall, taller than Gikuko, with black hair, pale, pale skin, stoic features, and, though powerfully built, an awkward stature. He was a sharp contrast to Ilowe, who, with his dark purple-black skin, bluish hair, pale eyes, and ebullient nature and rhythm, could make anyone feel at ease. Even the awkward flatmate, apparently.

“I’ll take care of it,” Ilowe said, teeth flashing in another teasing grin. “You can go back to your gaming.”

The awkward flatmate cracked a smile, a mere stretch of one corner of his mouth, then flicked nodded his head sideways at Gikuko. “Who’s this?” he asked, his voice nearly too deep to be understood.

“Friend of Tenna’s, nearly sold me her firstborn for the chance to salivate over Khlarlane.” Ilowe grinned at Gikuko, who could feel her cheeks flaming. She ducked her head, then raised it again when Ilowe continued. “Gikuko, this is my flatmate, Kakkhan. Kakkhan, Gikuko.”

Kakkhan had very black eyes, was Gikuko’s first thought. She fancied she could see a distant light in their depths, perhaps the evening star as it rose to its place in the sky. Then she blinked, dazzled, and the analogy took on embarrassing levels of lame.

“Nice to meet you,” Kakkhan said, extending his hand to shake hers for a very brief moment. Then he turned back to Ilowe and said, “I’m going upstairs to do some work. Make all the noise you want, I’m putting on the near-special headphones.”

“Understood.” Ilowe saluted as Gikuko gasped for breath; Kakkhan’s absence was like a swimmer’s emergence from a long dunk underwater. Ilowe turned to Gikuko and grinned wickedly, reached out to pat Gikuko’s shoulder. “Yeah, I had the same reaction, too. For such an awkward guy, he has quite the presence, doesn’t he?”

Gikuko was too winded to answer. Ilowe didn’t seem to need one, anyway, for he moved to one of the Khlarlane prints and bent over it. Gikuko followed and soon they were involved in a deep discussion over their favorites, why, what they saw in each painting, and the ramifications. Kakkhan faded like a dream to the back of Gikuko’s mind, to dwell there until she should get some time to process, like a rainy day.


End file.
